《伊斯坦布尔：一座城市的记忆》书写的既是一部个人的历史，更是这座城市的忧伤。对帕慕克而言，伊斯坦布尔一直是一座充满帝国遗迹的城市。这个城市特有的“呼愁”，早已渗入少年帕慕克的身体和灵魂之中。如今作为作家的帕慕克，以其独特的历史感与善于描写的杰出天分，重访家族秘史，发掘旧地往事的脉络，拼贴出当代伊斯坦布尔的城市生活。跟随他的成长记忆，我们可以目睹他个人失落的美好时光，认识传统和现代并存的城市历史，感受土耳其文明的感伤。

A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world's great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy-or huzun- that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire.With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters-both Turkish and foreign-who would shape his consciousness of his city. Like Joyce's Dublin and Borges' Buenos Aires, Pamuk's Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.