"A Turkish Pepys
Review by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Published: October 8 2010 23:03 | Last updated: October 8 2010 23:03
An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliya Çelebi, Edited by Robert Dankoff and Sooyong Kim, Eland, RRP£25, 496 pages
If you can imagine a writer who is a combination of Samuel Pepys, Falstaff and the 18th-century courtier Prince de Ligne writing in the Islamic world of the Ottoman empire at its height, then you will approach the fascinating talent of Evliya Çelebi. He was a contemporary of Pepys and while that irrepressible diarist was caressing his mistresses and compiling the admiralty accounts in Charles II’s London, Çelebi was travelling and writing on places, ideas, food, religion, war and even sexual mores in the greatest empire of the world."
More:FT.com / Books / Non-Fiction - A Turkish Pepys
