Istanbul through the eyes of two poets
Countless people have described, written about, and photographed Istanbul. Now for the first time two poets have come together to depict the city.


What’s more, they come not as poets per se, but as writer and photographer. The result? Sunay Akın and Akgün Akova’s ‘Istanbul Between Two Poets’. More than just a photograph album, this vibrant Istanbul ‘poem’ depicts campfires in the Belgrade Forest, the bull statue at Kadıköy, Istanbul’s stray dog population, a balloonman caught in the traffic at İstinye, the story of a boat turned flowerbox at Anadolu Hisarı. All appear here, in the most unexpected ways, like a series of light-hearted anecdotes: a black cat against the white of the Maiden’s Tower, the Imperial Caique presiding over yacht races on the Bosphorus, the silhouette of an angel sculpture at the corner of the Minerva Han, a fortune-teller’s rabbit at the Spice Bazaar. The first volume in Aya Yayıncılık’s series, ‘Aya Yolculuk’, this book combines words and photographs in a mind-boggling Istanbul history. Do the photos illustrate the words or vice versa? It’s not clear. What is clear is that Istanbul looks even more beautiful through the eyes of two poets...