The New York Times
What Autocracy Feels Like: Hansen elegantly maps out the constellation of forces that brought Turkey to [an] unprecedented moment . . . Rich and complex . . . As [Hansen] shows in this beautifully observant book, the first steps to resisting the easy seductions of cynicism are to look, listen and try to understand.
Forever Wars
A BOOK I STRONGLY RECOMMEND: … a clinic in writing contemporary history through journalism … Hansen skillfully weaves more than 100 years of late-Ottoman-to-Republican-era history into a narrative that contextualizes the cleavages in Turkish society and the various ways Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed them to remold the country in his image. This is the sort […]
The Guardian Review
Book of the Day: As the work of a journalist well acquainted with her adopted country, From Life Itself is lovingly written and well observed … Hansen brilliantly captures the little ways in which local prejudices begin to manifest: the complaints that Syrians smell of cooking oil; that they walk down the street all wrong; […]
Eliza Griswold
No modern history of Turkey, told through the complex lives and perspectives of its inhabitants, could be more compelling than Suzy Hansen’s. In it, she traces not only a nation in all of its specificity, but also the essential elements of the rise of autocracy.
Andrea Elliott
To read From Life Itself is to walk through walls and step into a sacred place, immersing in the longings, memories and fractures of people you will never forget. Through one Istanbul neighborhood, Suzy Hansen tells some of the biggest stories of our time—about global migration, authoritarian rule and the collapse of national identity. The […]
Halil Karaveli
Kaleidoscopic. Suzy Hansen makes sense of Erdoğan’s rule, showing how the autocrat’s remaking of Turkey is mirrored in the lives of ordinary citizens, but also how global and regional forces have determined the country’s fate. Hansen’s affectionate portrayals of the inhabitants of an Istanbul neighborhood make clear that we shouldn’t write Turkey and its democratic […]
Rania Abouzeid
From Life Itself is an engrossing, illuminating account of modern Turkey told through the prism of an Istanbul neighborhood and the lives that animate it. In deeply researched, engaging prose, Hansen interlaces the district’s changing fortunes with Turkey’s national metamorphosis and the rise of Erdoğan. A sweeping, intimate, and authoritative portrait of a crucial state […]
Pankaj Mishra
Continuously elegant and intellectually conscientious, From Life Itself sets a new standard in literary journalism. Its portrait of a crisis-ridden Turkey is gripping in itself. However, Suzy Hansen is able to diagnose a global unravelling by abandoning the assumptions and expectations of Western journalism that posited a clear division between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ achievers and […]
Publishers Weekly
A captivating consideration of Turkey as a truly “post-Western” nation charting its own course in a globalized world.
Maria Ressa
In From Life Itself, Suzy Hansen does something extraordinary: she plants herself in a single Istanbul neighborhood for a decade and watches democracy unravel—this is journalism at its most courageous and intimate. The frontline of history is right outside your door—this book shows you how to see it.