Orhan Pamuk and the construction of Turkey's National memory in Istanbul. Memories of a City

Pamuk‘s Istanbul. Memories of a City (2005), more than a book of individual memoirs, is a review of significant moments of Turkey‘s history, through which the writer addresses issues of national representation and identity. By analysing how Pamuk‘s book revises Turkey‘s cultural memory when the country‘s membership in the EU is considered a controversial key issue to the stability of Europe in the future, my aim is to examine to what extent the debate on Turkey‘s membership in the EU perpetuates Western representations of the oriental world in cultural and ideological terms.