The Last Apartment in Istanbul

I was writing to her, so that she would know me not as this old person whose joints creaked when he rose from a chair, but as the real Pericles: the man who dreamt, deceived, envied, loved…

Pericles Drakos has lived in the exquisite Circle Building for all of his seventy-five years. From its lofty windows, he has seen his little corner of Istanbul shift and transform. But as the area has become increasingly gentrified, Pericles has retreated into its shadowy corners. And when the pandemic hits, his isolation deepens.

But when Leyla, a sparky and beautiful thirty-something, moves in, Pericles is enthralled. And when he discovers Leyla is a writer, he decides to put his own pen to paper and record his own fraught history: that of a Greek man subjected to the politics of oppression and intimidation in twentieth-century Turkey.

The Last Apartment in Istanbul by Defne Suman is a captivating exploration of gentrification, personal history, and the lasting impacts of political turmoil, all through the lens of one man's life in a changing city.