Istanbul: The Lifestyle & the Food

After documenting two Vietnamese cities with an insider’s knowledge of food culture and photography that trusts the ordinary over the spectacular, Ngọc Trân turned the series outward. Istanbul was the choice: a city with the density of accumulated life that makes it worth documenting at street level, and a food culture complex enough to deserve the same quality of attention she had given to Hanoian bun thang and Saigon bánh mì.

Istanbul: The Lifestyle & the Food follows the same structure as its predecessors: chapters organised around aspects of daily life – food, neighbourhoods, customs, people – woven together by Ngọc Trân’s writing and photography. The cats chapter is the one that has already travelled furthest before publication: a portrait of a city’s character revealed through the detail of how it treats its animals, and an argument, made without stating it, that a place’s relationship with the vulnerable things in its streets tells you more about it than any landmark can. The text was edited by Michael Arnold.

The book is published by Phuongnam Books and is forthcoming. Retail and media links will be added on release.

A Vietnamese photographer’s book about Istanbul creates something neither country could produce alone – an outside eye with an insider’s patience, and a permanent record of a city that most Vietnamese readers have only imagined.

Istanbul is a city that has been accumulating character for two millennia: the layers show in its architecture, its markets, its food, and in the particular quality of attention its residents pay to the world around them. Among the details that define daily life in Istanbul – the Turkish coffee, the street food, the call to prayer, the maze-like neighbourhoods of the old city – few are as revealing as its relationship with its cats. The city’s “kedi” belong to no one and are cared for by everyone, fed and sheltered and visited at the vet by people who would not describe themselves as cat owners. They are, as Ngọc Trân observes, among the city’s oldest residents.

Istanbul: The Lifestyle & the Food is the third volume in Ngọc Trân’s ongoing series, and its first departure from Vietnam. The photographer and author who brought the same eye to Hanoi and Saigon turns it here on a city she came to as an outsider and documented with the curiosity and patience that have defined the series from the beginning: not the famous monuments, but the side streets; not the restaurant, but the vendor; not the event, but the detail that makes ordinary life in this particular place different from ordinary life anywhere else.

“Istanbul holds a secret charm for cat lovers. Cats are among the city’s oldest residents and are cherished by the people. They are lovingly called ‘kedi’ and are provided with food, water, cozy shelters during harsh winters, cardboard beds for the sweltering summer days, and regular trips to the vet. There’s no fear or distance between humans and cats here.”

“As you stroll through Istanbul’s maze-like streets, you’ll be greeted by a chorus of purring cats. They belong to no one, yet are cared for and adored by many… So, is it fair to say that this city could be called Catstanbul in the language of felines?”

— Ngọc Trân, Istanbul: The Lifestyle & the Food