An Unconventional Bosphorus Narrative: Doğan Hızlan’s Reflections in Hürriyet

Doğan Hızlan, the doyen of our literary and critical world, gave his Hürriyet column today to Boğaziçi’nin Tarih Atlası. He sets out from a familiar yet searching question: we keep going down to the Bosphorus, we sit by its water and listen to its wind. But how well do we really know this waterway that has come flowing to us through the centuries?

Seeing a shore often and knowing its historical fabric, the memories it carries, are of course two different things, and Hızlan dwells on precisely that. He then sets out, from his own vantage point, which fine details the book makes us notice again in the views we think we already know.

As for what he says about the preface, I suppose I must accept it as a considerable compliment. I did take great pleasure in writing it.