A Strangeness in My Mind

Being the Adventures and Dreams of Mevlut Karataş, a Seller of Boza, and of His Friends, and Also a Portrait of Life in Istanbul Between 1969 and 2012 from Many Different Points of View

For Asl

I had melancholy thoughts…

a strangeness in my mind,

A feeling that I was not for that hour,

Nor for that place.

— William Wordsworth, The Prelude

The first man who, having fenced off a plot of land, thought of saying “This is mine” and found people simple enough to believe him was the real founder of civil society.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men

The gulf between the private and public views of our countrymen is evidence of the power of the state.

— Celâl Salik, Milliyet