Description
Book SynopsisThe Irish-American physicist, academic and traveller John Freely wrote more than sixty lively books on travel, history and science before he died in 2017, aged 90. But It was Istanbul, where he emigrated with his family in 1960 to take up a post teaching physics at the American Robert College, that turned him into a writer. His first book, ''Strolling Through Istanbul'' written with his fellow academic Hilary Sumner-Boyd was an instant success when it was published in 1972 and has never been out of print since. With the exception of Oguz, so thin that he was known as The Ghost because he barely cast a shadow, everyone in John Freely''s rumbustious memoir, including the author himself, is larger than life. Bohemian Istanbul was a haven for myriad misfits who found their feet in the city. Clamorous, glamorous, eccentric, cosmopolitan and frequently outrageous, they included the ''berserker'' Peter Pfeiffer, a resourceful exile with three passports; Aliye Berger, the beautiful queen of
Table of ContentsIntroduction by Andrew Finkel; 1 Death of a Ghost; 2 The Queen of Pera; 3 Ghosts in Exile; 4 The Life of the Party; 5Peter Pfeiffer Memorial Goose-Buying Day; 6 Strolling Through Istanbul; 7 The Legless Beggar; 8 The Imaginary Dog; 9 Burial of a Bohemian; 10 The Elephant’s Grave; A Tribute to John Freely by Andrew Finkel.; The Final Journey, by Maureen Freely.; Photographs by Ara Güler
