The Last Apartment in Istanbul
By (Author) Defne Suman
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Apollo
4th November 2025
3rd July 2025
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Fiction in translation
Hardback
400
Width 148mm, Height 229mm
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.
Defne Suman was born in Istanbul and grew up on Buyukada. She gained a Masters in sociology from the Bosphorus University, then worked as a teacher in Thailand and Laos where she studied Far Eastern philosophy and mystic disciplines. She later continued her studies in Oregon, USA and now lives in Athens with her husband. Her English language debut The Silence of Scheherazade was published by Head of Zeus in 2021. Find out more: defnesuman.com; @defnesuman