Letters from Istanbul

At first glance, Ataşehir seems to embody everything you hate about modern Istanbul. At second glance, it doesn’t get much better. You can insert here...

Ali was a 27-year-old Kurd from the eastern Turkish city of Van. He and his brothers had come to Istanbul nearly a decade before...

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...

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....

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

It’s always a good idea to get out of Istanbul, to escape the traffic, the noise and endless grind of people and machines. My wife...

On the road to Gebze, where I teach twice a week, I have a lot of time to contemplate the passing landscape. Out on the...

Nizam walked quickly and nervously through the twilight. The fences and houses along Limon Paşa Boulevard were dark silhouettes beneath the rapidly aging sun....

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’ve been a teacher for the past ten years, first in Prague and now in Istanbul. Over the years, you get used to seeing...

Author’s note: Last week, I wrote about the stories behind some of Istanbul’s street names, and the week before that I traced some of...

The other day I was having lunch at Café Nero with one of the new teachers. She said she came from Austin. Since I grew...

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...

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...

My wife wants to buy an apartment. That’s a pretty common goal for many people in this city, since it’s a sound investment. The...

The Galataport has finally opened – some of it anyway. This immense 1.7 billion-dollar project along the shores of Karaköy on the city’s European side...

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...

A group of border agents are sitting on a beach in the southern Turkish seaside resort town of Antalya. It’s a working holiday –...

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...

All day long, in fits and waves, there had been blackouts. And not just in one part of Istanbul, but across the whole vast...

The city of Karaman stands on the low wheat plains of Anatolia, about an hour south of Konya, the birthplace of Rumi. Arriving from Istanbul,...