The City I Was Born İstanbul 1926-1946

Spending the first twenty years of his life in Istanbul, where he was born in 1926, Mario Vitti, did not return to his city from Rome, where he went for university education. He returns to Turkish with his memories of Beyoğlu, Tomtom Street, Levantine life, ordinary Greek families, İstiklal Caddesi, Eminönü, Hatice Sultan, intellectuals of enlightenment, The Ottoman Empire in the past and the newly established Republic, life on the Islands, Atatürk, Mussolini, Lebon Patisserie, Hachette Bookstore, Istanbul Stock Exchange, the first talking films, stylish hardcover books, love of literature, fog, rain and multicultural friendships, childhood, adolescence, the fog of Istanbul, long walks in the city, rain, and growing pains, with the delicious translation of Sula Bozis, who we know as a writer and historian.

Although Mario Vitti, one of Italy’s best-known experts in Contemporary Greek Literature and owner of honorary doctorates from Thessaloniki, Paris Sorbonne and Nicosia Universities, wrote his memoirs during and after his travels to Istanbul of the new century with his extended family as a note to history and a guide to his grandchildren about their family roots, for the Turkish readers, he presents the documents of the lives and periods that they didn’t know much about and wouldn’t have the chance to read/listen about.

“One cannot avoid loquacity when immersed in memories and emotions… The only thing I would like to add is the book The City I Was Born consists of the most beautiful and emotional texts I have read on Istanbul, in which I was also born and in which my form and beliefs are shaped.”