‘With music in Istanbul’

Istanbul is my favourite city, a mesmerising, magical place. I have visited several times, sometimes staying for weeks. Each visit was a unique adventure, it is a place that you can never get to the end of. I have been commissioned to write a short story about one encounter I had in Istanbul, for Oxygen Books ‘City-Pick Istanbul’.

Oxygen Books have created an inspiring new series of travel writing, where readers can get inside the imagination of a city through the writers who have written about it. ‘City-Pick Istanbul’ is edited by Heather Reyes and mixes writing and views from insiders and outsiders, taking you into the cities secret spaces, its streets, houses, markets, histories, and myriad of atmospheres. Excerpts from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s ‘Turkish Letters’ from 1716, sit beside Orhan Pamuk discussing being a writer in Istanbul. David Byrne writes about music, while novelist Elif Shafak brings the lush food of Istanbul to life.  I was most inspired to read Turkish writers in translation. There are several excerpts from Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar’s novel ‘A mind at Peace’ which I found exquisite, and now want to read the book.

My little story sits humbly beside such beautiful work. ‘With music in Istanbul’ is about a rare encounter that my Greek partner and I had when we met the General of the Royal Mehter Band.  ‘City-Pick Istanbul’ comes out on 11 April 2103. Have a look at the rest of the collection, with books about Berlin, New York, Dublin …  it’s a new way to travel with stories.

UPDATE: City-Pick Istanbul has a nice review in The Guardian