A Strangeness in My Mind

Summary

In 1969, twelve-year-old Mevlut leaves his village in central Anatolia and arrives in Istanbul, a city expanding so rapidly that familiar streets and entire neighbourhoods seem to disappear almost overnight. Hoping to build a better life, he works alongside his father selling boza, a traditional fermented drink, on the city’s streets. Over the years, he takes on different jobs, falls in love, marries, and raises a family while watching Istanbul transform around him.

Mevlut is neither a great success nor a complete failure. While others grow wealthy from the city’s rapid development, he remains an outsider in a place he has called home for decades. Even as his life changes, he continues to wonder about the peculiar feeling inside him—a sense that the world he inhabits never quite matches the world he imagines.

Spanning more than forty years, A Strangeness in My Mind is a sweeping portrait of urban migration, ordinary working lives, and the transformation of modern Istanbul. Through Mevlut’s quiet resilience, Pamuk explores love, social mobility, and the search for belonging in a city that is always becoming something new.