ORHAN PAMUK’S ISTANBUL -- 11

NEW YORK TIMES WORDS/STEVE WRIGHT IMAGES

Mr. Pamuk found the building himself, designed the exhibits and assembled his character’s fictional collection from flea markets and his own family heirlooms. 

Glass cases on the walls in darkened rooms are arranged chapter by chapter, filled with these supposed tokens of his character’s mostly unrequited love: crystal bottles of cologne, porcelain dogs, Istanbul postcards and 4,213 of Fusun’s cigarette butts, each one encased behind its own tiny window.

“I didn’t publish a novel for years, but I have excuses,” Mr. Pamuk told me. “I did a museum in between.”

Karakoy Square, farther down the hill, is a waterfront plaza radiating outward into avenues lined with modern and Ottoman-era office buildings, food bazaars and appliance shops.

Street vendors sell pomegranate juice and simit, the wheel-like bread otherwise known as a Turkish bagel.

-Joshua Hammer