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for Istanbul
Aziyadé
Pierre Loti
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French edition
Aziyadé (1879; also known as Constantinople) is a novel by the French author Pierre Loti, which was initially published anonymously and led him rapidly to fame. The book is based on diary notes and a romance by the author, who in 1876 witnessed the struggles for supremacy in the Balkans and the agony of the former great power Turkey.
Pierre Loti was a Turcophile French naval officer who was in the Ottoman Empire between 1876 and 1877. Aziyadé (1879), a novel of letters, tells the autofictional love story of a naval officer (he has the same name as the author) against the background of the declining Ottoman Empire. In Constantinople (today's Istanbul), the novel character Loti disguises himself as a Turk and adopts the national language in order to pass for a native. read more
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