Exploring Turkish Landscapes: Crossing Inner Boundaries

By Levent Ağaoğlu

05/09/2021

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Kindle Edition

by Lisa Morrow (Author)

Format: Kindle Edition

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The first time Lisa Morrow went to Turkey she was just one of many young people on the great pilgrimage to Europe and beyond. The colourful sights, sounds and smells of foreign countries appeal to their need for adventure and excitement. When the enterprise becomes too trying, there is always the safety of a return ticket to fall back on. After a given period of time they’re expected to return, a little older and a lot wiser. While some go for a year, others never make it back.

At first Lisa only travelled across the vast expanses of Turkey as a visitor, but then she began to stay for longer and longer periods of time. Her initial glimpses of a culture less western than eastern were replaced by an awareness that Turkey is at times both and yet something more. These experiences became a metaphor for an inner journey from the known to the unknown and back. The uncompromising nature of Turkish culture and society meant she had to accept what she saw without changing it. In so doing she started to question who she was and look for an alternative way of being.

Exploring Turkish Landscapes builds on Lisa Morrow’s first collection of stories, Inside Out In Istanbul. This latest collection offers a much more personal insight into Turkish traditions and beliefs, and also takes us on an emotional journey as one woman rediscovers herself.

Lisa Morrow was born in Sydney, Australia and grew up in a leafy middle class North Shore suburb. After high school she went to Sydney University but failed to find her niche. She worked as a public servant, cleaner, sales assistant, waitress, bar maid and car counter, then went overseas. Once there she hitchhiked through the UK, travelled in Europe and arrived in Turkey just as the Gulf War was starting. Her three month stay in the small central Anatolian village of Göreme changed her life. On her return to Australia she earned a BA Honours Degree in Sociology from Macquarie University. An academic career beckoned but the call to travel was louder. After several false starts she moved to Istanbul in 2010.

Lisa’s publications include a memoir “Waiting for the Tulips to Bloom: Adrift in Istanbul” and two collections of essays, “Inside Out In Istanbul: Making Sense of the City” and “Exploring Turkish Landscapes: Crossing Inner Boundaries”. She has a regular segment on San Francisco Turkish radio, and researched, written and produced an audio walking tour called “Stepping back through Chalcedon: Kadikoy Walk”. She also writes for numerous magazines and website and for her blog www.insideoutinistanbul.com. A full list of her published articles, with links, can be found there.