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Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdo?an
by Suzy Hansen
One neighborhood in Istanbul: a window on a city, country, region, and world in a state of upheaval.
Karagumruk, an Istanbul neighborhood once dominated by Ottoman-era homes, is now known for petty thieves, cheap apartment blocks, and a massive influx of Syrian refugees. It's here that Suzy Hansen went looking for the truth behind the headlines of the Turkish president Erdoğan's authoritarian turn, a catastrophic regional war, and an accelerating geopolitical crisis. She asks: Was Turkey a harbinger of what would soon arise in other countries, the resurgence of authoritarianism? Or do the lives of this neighborhood, and the transformations of Erdoğan's Turkey, reveal a more complex story?
During a decade spent reporting from Karagumruk, Hansen discovered the neighborhood's secrets and got to know its people: Ismail, the longtime muhtar, or neighborhood councilman; Huseyin, a loyalist for Erdoğan's Islamic nationalist AK party; and Ebru, a real estate agent and mother with ambitions to unseat Ismail. Through these local perspectives, Hansen connects the events unfolding in Karagümrük to the forces roiling Turkey, the Middle East, and the world, capturing the sweep of the last ten years in microcosm.
From the author of the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize finalist Notes on a Foreign Country, From Life Itself is a story for a world out of joint. An absorbing account of one neighborhood in Istanbul that has seen profound change, it offers lessons for all of us who feel the pressure of the disorienting global forces remaking our lives.
"Fascinating ... An urgent cautionary tale for American readers ... Hansen's deep-rooted reporting has undeniable gravitas ... A rich portrait of a community―and a country―in the shadow of an increasingly powerful president." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A captivating consideration of Turkey as a truly 'post-Western' nation charting its own course in a globalized world." ―Publishers Weekly
"From Life Itself is a dizzying tour de force: the simultaneously cosmic and microscopic record of a transformative decade in Istanbul, Turkey, and the world. Current events and political analyses are deftly interwoven with, and sometimes subverted by, firsthand accounts of life as it is actually lived. By turns gutting and exhilarating, filled with vitality and humanity, Hansen's writing defies cynicism, thwarts easy generalizations, and leaves the reader with a sense of wonder." ―Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or and The Idiot
"The Sufis tell us of two paths to enlightenment: to look inside oneself and find the universe, or to look out at the universe and find oneself. Here Suzy Hansen is doing both. In her intimate examination of one neighborhood of one city of one country that is not her own, she reveals to us the swirling patterns of our entire world." ―Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West and The Last White Man
This information about From Life Itself was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Suzy Hansen lived in Istanbul for more than a decade, where she was a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and many other publications. Her first book, Notes on a Foreign Country, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction and the winner of the Overseas Press Club of America's Cornelius Ryan Award. She has taught writing at Princeton University, New York University, and Bard College.
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