Letters from Istanbul

I live in Kadıköy, the “city of the blind.” Have you heard this one? Well, in ancient times, the first Greeks who arrived from Megara set...

Traffic is a daily grind for some 14 million Istanbullus. That’s not even counting the outskirts, which include several million more. You get used to...

On the way to work the other morning, the taxi driver, noticing I was a yabancı, asked the usual, inevitable question. “America,” I answered. “Amerika?” the driver...

This month marks my tenth anniversary in the city by the Bosphorus, so I want to go back and remember how it was that...

For those of you who haven’t been there, Sultangazi sits on the furthermost outskirts of Istanbul, out near the highway that heads up to...

When I first arrived in Istanbul, nearly ten years ago, I found a room for rent in Kadıköy. It was on a narrow street...

A friend of mine, whom I’ll call Gökhan, loves eating. It is one of his great passions in life. As the son of an...

They were three sisters and they had all grown up together in a small town in the south of Turkey. The oldest, and the...

Bağdat Caddesi is a long, wide shopping avenue on the Asian side of the city, Istanbul’s equivalent of 5th Avenue or Rodeo Drive. Nearby are...

It’s hard to miss the Trump Towers in Istanbul. The twin tower complex, bearing the signature brand name in large letters, commands your view as...

With the start of the holy month of Ramazan this past week,  many Turks have been fasting and praying. It’s not easy, especially  in...

Every great city has its own soundtrack, or at least, deserves one. If it doesn’t, you should think about moving somewhere else. I think of...

A young journalist travels back in time to 1919 Istanbul, accidentally disrupting the natural flow of history. She must act quickly to prevent the...

You may have read in the Turkish news recently that archaeologists in Antalya found the head of Medusa … in stone. The archaeologists told reporters...

In the city of Istanbul many poor old women sell packets of tissue in the streets, mostly to passing motorists and the people sitting...

I was 50. Half a century. How was that even possible? Some years ago, one of my directors Zeynep, a lovely, cheerful Mediterranean woman had...

We're delighted to announce that long-time contributor James Tressler has recently released the third volume to his Letters from Istanbul series, available for purchase via Lulu....

Life begins all over again in the fall: That old saying is particularly apt this year.  In the city by the Bosphorus, students and teachers...

One Saturday afternoon in the autumn of 2012, I was walking around Beyoğlu. I don’t spend much time on the European side of Istanbul,...

Some time back, I decided to try a new approach to my Istanbul stories. Up until that point, the stories, though carefully written, were missing...

We were getting married. We couldn’t believe it. It was unbelievable. We didn’t consider ourselves the marrying type. We were too lazy to get...

The other evening, my wife and I were out in our neighborhood of Koşuyolu feeding the cats as is our evening ritual. While we were...

As a yabancı, you probably have your own first impressions of the city. One of my own was made while coming from Ataturk International Airport...

When you first arrive in the city, you feel drawn to the riotous spectacle of Taksim, or to the multitudes of the street markets...