A Geocritical Reading of Istanbul

I left a few books by Orhan Pamuk and George Orwell on the table. My classmates tracked me in amazement when I carried all those books to the lecturer’s desk. I was a doctoral candidate in the Comparative Literature program in Istanbul, and every session, two or three students presented a lecture on a book during the semester. I confidently announced that I would talk about a few books by Pamuk and Orwell for the whole session. That snowy day in 2012, I was blind to any relation between Orwell, Pamuk, and their discussed titles, and the only reason to talk about them was an accident choice of my recently read books. However, after three hours, I had only discussed Istanbul, My Name is Red, and Other Colours by Pamuk. After that session, the value I received invoked me to collect and read Pamuk’s other books translated into English.