Semiotic Intersections: Orhan Pamuk and Ara Güler’s Istanbul

Drawing through light and drawing through words can converge harmoniously, a technique used by some contemporary writers such as John Steinbeck, W. G. Sebald, Orhan Pamuk, among others. However, the use of images in literary texts is not common. As a curiosity about the aforementioned mixture, some questions came to mind: what if there were no images attached to the text, would that make any difference to the construction of reading? Another general question is what could lead an author to choose to use photography and/or various images in a particular literary work. Seeking a specific answer to such broad questions is very pretentious. To help narrow down the scope of the study, we chose to consider the use of photography in Pamuk’s work Istanbul, where we find an engaging narrative and the use of exquisite images to explain this hybrid relationship between languages.