The Book of Istanbul, edited by Jim Hinks and Gul Turner – review

Istanbul spans the largest metropolitan area in Europe, so it’s hardly surprising that most of the 10 authors represented in this anthology express concerns about the traffic. Nedim Gursel writes of a furious, gun-wielding sergeant shouting at the cars: “For some reason he threatened to burn rather than roast errant drivers. Just for taking the roundabout carelessly, he would burn us.” The religious rifts of a city straddling two continents are concisely dealt with in Muge Iplikci’s story of a female student prohibited from wearing the hijab: “She would give up a piece of herself, first a headscarf . . . In the end she would leave college behind her like some forgotten item on a bench.” Sema Kaygusuz is worried about feral cats overrunning a city where “almost everybody’s ancestors come from somewhere else”, while Ozen Yula spins an elliptical parable about a panther who devours a schoolchild and is beaten by its keepers with iron rods. One hopes there’s a metaphorical element to this tale, otherwise it’s a terrible indictment of Turkish zoos.

via The Book of Istanbul, edited by Jim Hinks and Gul Turner – review | Books | The Guardian.