A Street in Istanbul Tells the Story of the World
Suzy Hansen on nation, identity, and the slow creep of authoritarianism
How does geopolitics play out on one street? The residents of Istanbul carry on with their daily routines while reckoning with complex foreign-policy dynamics, which affect the entire neighborhood. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian rise — against the backdrop of the US war on terror and the Syrian civil war — has forced the country to newly contend with questions of nation and identity.
In this episode, the Institute for Global Affairs’ Jonathan Guyer is joined by journalist Suzy Hansen. She discusses her new book From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan in which she traces the country’s political and social evolution as the Turkish president consolidated his rule and asserted power on the global stage.
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Suzy Hansen is a writer based in New York City and the author of From Life Itself: Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdoğan (Macmillan, 2026). She lived in Istanbul for more than a decade, where she was a contributor to The New York Times Magazine and more. Her 2018 book Notes on a Foreign Country was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction. She has written for The New York Review of Books, New York Magazine, and The New Yorker.
Find Suzy on X: https://x.com/suzyhans
Read From Life Itself: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374298432/fromlifeitself/
