To begin, I want to state the fact that I read the book in English first, and then read the majority (but not all of it) in Italian. I wanted to see how good the translation was and honestly, the descriptions were exactly the same. I did not find one clear discrepancy in which I thought “this was translated totally wrong.”
The city I chose to focus on was the city of Zirma on page 16. The reason this city stood out to me was due to its memorable description of the people present: “the blind black man” , “a girl walking with a puma on a leash”, “a fat woman fanning herself” , “a tattoo artist arranging his needles and inks and pierced patterns on his bench.” Many of the cities had descriptions of the environment in detail, but I found the characters described above to be very memorable and easy to picture. So much so, I was inspired to draw this image based off of the city.
For me, the city of Zirma drew me in because I wanted to know the back stories of all the characters, and I was drawn in to learn more about them.
The city really reminded me of when I visited Istanbul in Turkey. I remember seeing so many memorable people in which I wanted to know how they ended up in Istanbul; be they tourist, or people residing in the city. I understand that this is completely subjective, as one can find “interesting” looking people in any city if they look hard enough, but . Istanbul was the first time I saw a mix of hipster fashion next to traditional clothing on every street. I was drawn into many of the people I saw, and wondered where they were from, if they lived in Turkey, or what brought them there.