![]() ![]() We were reading Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book, set miles away, in Istanbul. ![]() The novel's first sentences seemed to have been constructed back-to-front, but, after much effort on the part of Emel, I perceived what the author wanted me to: a leaden, wintry light over a sleeping woman, the nape of her neck bowed in slightly freakish declivity this amid noises from the street outside, the salep-seller's jugs scraping against the pavement, the whistle of a minibus superintendent. I was learning Turkish with Emel Hanim, a kind and patient teacher from the language institute up the road, and the first book I rashly suggested we read turned out to be one of the hardest in the language. I n 1996, I was a young foreigner in the Turkish capital, Ankara. ![]()
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