Pera Palace Hotel, one of the historical structures of İstanbul that has defied the years, was opened with an enthusiastic ball in 1895. Built by architect Alexandre Vallaury, who was the creator of many structures such as the Ottoman Bank and the Archaeological Museum, Pera Palace has witnessed an ancient history in a way befitting its magnificence. With its electric elevator surrounded by stairs where the Art Nouveau movement stands out and its hot water taps, it became the first hotel in Türkiye to meet European standards.

Pera Palace, with its eye-catching scenery of the Golden Horn, has hosted many distinguished names such as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Former King of the United Kingdom Edward VIII, Former First Lady of the United States Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, Pierre Loti, Agatha Christie and Umberto Eco. One of these names is American author Ernest Miller Hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway: A Pen Rising in the Shadow of War

The Nobel Prize-winner American author and journalist Ernest Miller Hemingway was a close witness to many wars, including the World Wars. The way Hemingway grew up with the memories of his family from the American Civil War were also influential in his adding the theme of war to his writing. Hemingway, who strongly reflected on the devastation that was caused by war on the human soul with all these experiences, left a permanent mark on the literary world with his war-themed and anti-war books.

The author, who believed that the destruction that was caused by war should be told in the clearest way, addressed the individual and spiritual effects of war in his works with a realistic and simple style. In his first novel, The Sun Also Rises, he conveyed to the readers the suffering of the “lost generation” people created by World War I, in which he himself participated with the excitement of youth. His book A Farewell to Arms, which deals with events that can be considered a reflection of his experiences, is a historical document and reveals the losses that were caused by the war.

In his book For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is about the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway invited the reader to a deep empathy through characters who feel the internal conflicts that were created by the war. His strong and simple style in The Old Man and the Sea, where he recounts the struggle of fisherman Santiago, earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Hemingway’s experiences, which paved the way for him to become one of the pioneers of war literature, led him to İstanbul, closely observing the War of Independence and reflecting these observations in his works.

Hemingway’s Observations of İstanbul

Ernest Hemingway came to İstanbul in 1922 on the Orient Express, which he boarded from Paris as a war correspondent. The author, who closely observed the War of Independence and İstanbul, inspected the city in depth and witnessed the social and individual effects of the war. With his sensitivity and journalistic awareness, he wrote articles in which he discussed the course of the War of Independence, the face of İstanbul that he discovered and his thoughts about Atatürk. 

In his article called “İstanbul Kirli Beyaz, Mat ve Tehditkâr”, Ernest Hemingway, who conveyed his observations during his journey from Sirkeci Station to Pera on the Orient Express, described the city by saying that the boats in the Golden Horn created a patchwork image. He reconstructed the real İstanbul that he saw for the first time from the window of the Orient Express in his mind and expressed his thoughts about the city with the sentences, “İstanbul was certainly not a city of chaos and mystery that we remember from movies. It was not the city we remember from photographs and paintings either. It was a universe spread out in treeless areas scorched by the sun in a winding direction extending from the window of the approaching train.” 

Hemingway, who stayed at the Pera Palace Hotel, which opened to host the distinguished guests of the Orient Express, generally spent his time in the city by writing and observing the atmosphere of the city. The atmosphere of Pera Palace, which still maintains its value today, helped shape the author’s impressions of İstanbul and the experiences he would write about.

Hemingway at Pera Palace: Traces of a Writer in the Heart of İstanbul

Continuing to preserve the cultural heritage of İstanbul, Pera Palace Hotel opens its doors to its guests with rooms where it hosts many distinguished guests.

Bearing traces of the period when Hemingway stayed, Ernest Hemingway Suite brings together historical elegance and comfort. Combining nostalgia and modern decoration with a timeless aesthetic, Ernest Hemingway Suite invites you to Pera Palace Hotel to discover the traces the author had left in İstanbul and feel the magic of the past.