Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul … the names evoke so many stages of the life of this city, whose development was crucial to the history of the Western world. Istanbul is the doorway to the East and the West door, a bridge between two worlds, between two civilisations, between two religions. It is the place where one experiences more intensively– like in Orhan Pamuk’s books, his Nobel Prize – the European desire and the moral and the intellectual struggles it awakens. The cycle BRIDGES TO ISTANBUL, conceived to coincide with the year in which Istanbul is European Capital of Culture, opens bridges for the understanding of this unique and exciting city.
Consultant for the literary programming | João Paulo Cotrim