Author: Orhan Pamuk List Price: $14.95 Pages: 400 Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition ISBN: 1400033888

| Book description |

The author, born in 1952 into a rapidly fading bourgeois family in Istanbul, spins a masterful tale, moving from his fractured extended family, all living in a communal apartment building, out into the city and encompassing the entire Ottoman Empire. Pamuk sees the slow collapse of the once powerful empire hanging like a pall over the city and its citizens. Central to many Istanbul residents' character is the concept of hzn (melancholy). Istanbul's hzn, Pamuk writes, "is a way of looking at life that... is ultimately as life affirming as it is negating." His world apparently in permanent decline, Pamuk revels in the darkness and decay manifest around him. He minutely describes horrific accidents on the Bosphorus Strait and his own recurring fantasies of murder and mayhem. Throughout, Pamuk details the breakdown of his family: elders die, his parents fight and grow apart, and he must find his way in the world.  人一生當中至少都有一次反思，帶領我們檢視自己出生的環境，并反問自己：何以在這天出生在特定世界的一角？就在土耳其帝國瓦解、世界已然忘卻了它的存在之際，出生于伊斯坦堡，享譽國際的土耳其作家帕慕克開始領悟到這個貧窮、破敗、孤立、有如廢墟一般的城市，與自己的命運千絲萬縷的糾葛，因此決意重新爬梳文明古城的歷史，也以此對抗始終籠罩在這個城市的帝國斜陽的憂傷。他以獨特的歷史感與善于說故事的手法，透過優美生動的文字，敘述自己重訪整個家族起落興衰的過程，在拼湊自己家族歷史的同時，也拼貼出形形色色、多彩多姿的當代伊斯坦堡風情。全書成功地結合了個人記憶與城市歷史文化，有如一部自傳性質的城市傳記。 About Author Orhan Pamuk is the author of six novels and the recipient of major Turkish and international literary awards. He is one of Europe's most prominent novelists, and his work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in Istanbul. 奧罕·帕慕克（Orhan Pamuk），出生于伊斯坦堡，自一九七四年開始從事寫作，曾出版過《白色城堡》、《雪花》等多部作品，他的作品被評論為“當代小說中最新穎、最具原創之作”。其中《伊斯坦堡：一座城市的記憶》更為帕慕克獲得2005年諾貝爾文學獎提名的殊榮，并最終摘取了2006年諾貝爾文學大獎。