Suzy Hansen, "From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan" (FSG, 2026)

From Suzy Hansen, whose previous book, Notes on a Foreign Country, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux,

2026) is a story for a world out of joint. An absorbing account of one

neighborhood in Istanbul that has seen profound change, it offers

lessons for all of us who feel the pressure of the disorienting global

forces remaking our lives. Karagümrük, a neighborhood once dominated

by Ottoman-era homes, is now known for petty thieves, cheap apartment

blocks, and an influx of Syrian refugees. It’s here that Hansen went

looking for the truth behind the Turkish president Recep Tayyip

Erdoğan’s authoritarian turn, a catastrophic regional war, and an

accelerating geopolitical crisis. She asks: Was Turkey a harbinger of

what would soon arise in other countries, the resurgence of

authoritarianism? Or do the lives in this neighborhood, and the