Richard Gwyn

We are all immigrants

I have always had a thing for borders; grew up on one, and chose eventually to live on another. So it was no surprise that Kapka Kassabova’s account of lives in the Strandja forest – yes, half the… Read More

Cities and Memories

Variations on a theme by Calvino When a man drives a long time through wild regions, his imagination begins to wander. No, that’s not right. Try again. When a man drives across the last continent at night, from… Read More

The cities within yourself

This has been Turkish week, but also – and with a synchronicity that pleases me very much – Greek week. The London Book Fair had Turkey as its ‘Market Focus’ and two expeditionary groups of Turkish writers descended… Read More

Poets who translate

  It is our last day in Istanbul, and the rain continues, as it has done since Friday evening, shrouding the Bosphorous in grey mist. Before catching a taxi to the airport we snatch a visit to Aghia… Read More

The other who walks alongside us

  On the radio this morning the Turkish writer Elif Shafak prepares me for a journey. I am listening to Istanbul, she says, and we share the sounds of the city, which dissolve, eventually into water. ‘Everything in… Read More