India, Feb. 18 -- On Finding and Losing Yourself in the Modern City, Matthew Beaumont writes that not all steps are "unlost", but only those that follow a "prescribed trajectory". Given that the characters in your books also have a nuanced relationship with their city, what is your relationship with exhuming history - the "unlost" steps - and memory?

Amazing - what a beginning! I can relate to this thought very much because, even as a young child in high school, I was really interested in walking the streets of Istanbul. Though I grew up in a modern part of Istanbul, I really liked going to the old town. But I wasn't allowed to go. So, instead of going to school, I would often go on walks around the old town, the old buildings. bunk scho...