Berk, İlhan. Pera. İstanbul: Adam Yayınları, 1990, 194pp.
ABSTRACT
Pera
The author, who has penned various works of poetry, employs a poetic language with rhetorical expressions and metaphors in this book on Pera (today’s Beyoğlu). Using this agreeable literary style, he introduces various Muslim and non-Muslim personalities who have lived, worked and travelled in Pera. He mentions the relations that well-known politicians, men of letters, statesmen and artists established with Pera and what people did in their daily activities. He offers glimpses into the lives of famous personalities through Pera’s renowned hotels, taverns, streets, arcades and cinemas. The book also includes the poems the author has written on the neighbourhoods.
This heartfelt account allows the reader to feel as if they were actually walking on the streets of Pera. Referring to the street names that were changed and the buildings that were replaced by others, the author makes comparisons between the old and new Pera; he describes the structures that used to stand in the place of today’s much frequented restaurants and arcades. He provides information on the origins of names of roads, streets and arcades. That the author occasionally narrates various stories related to the streets of Pera make the account even more enjoyable.
Feryal Tansuğ
Translated by Aysu Dincer
Tansuğ, Feryal. “English abstract of 'Pera'". Translated by Aysu Dinçer. In Cities as Built and Lived Environments: Scholarship from Muslim Contexts, 1875 to 2011, by Aptin Khanbaghi, 101. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014.
Muslim Civilisations Abstracts - The Aga Khan University
