From Life Itself. By Suzy Hansen. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 368 pages; $30. Profile; £12.99
《生命本身》。作者：苏西·汉森。法勒、斯特劳斯和吉鲁出版社；368页；30美元。Profile出版社；12.99英镑
YOU can barely(几乎不；勉强) dig a hole in Istanbul without hitting history. During construction of a tunnel under the Bosphorus(① 博斯普鲁斯海峡是连接黑海和马尔马拉海...), engineers uncovered the remains of an ancient harbour, along with shipwrecks(沉船；船只失事) from around 1,500 years ago. Across the strait, renovation(翻新；整修) of the Haydarpasa train station, built in 1906, revealed that platforms and tracks had been laid over the ruins of Chalcedon(① 迦克墩是位于博斯普鲁斯海峡亚洲侧的希...), a Greek settlement founded in the seventh century BC.
在伊斯坦布尔，你几乎随便挖个洞都会碰上历史。在博斯普鲁斯海峡下修建隧道时，工程师们发现了一个古代港口的遗迹，以及大约1500年前的沉船。在海峡对岸，1906年建成的海达尔帕萨火车站的翻新工程显示，站台和铁轨是建在迦克墩废墟之上的——这是一个建于公元前7世纪的希腊定居点。
From the Greeks to the Genoese to the Ottomans, Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) has been marked by its scores of(大量的；许多的) new arrivals. A time traveller from 1950, when the city was home to roughly 1m souls(人（旧用法或修辞）), would scarcely recognise(几乎认不出来) it today. Istanbul has become Europe's largest city, with countless new housing and infrastructure projects and some 16m people—more than the population of most EU countries. Only a fraction(一小部分；零头) of the Greeks, Armenians and Jews who once made up a large share of Istanbul's population remain. In their place have come migrants from Anatolia, including Kurds, and more recently, refugees(难民) from the Middle East.
从希腊人到热那亚人再到奥斯曼人，伊斯坦布尔（原君士坦丁堡）因其大量新来者而留下了印记。一位来自1950年的时间旅行者，当时这座城市只有大约100万居民，今天几乎认不出它。伊斯坦布尔已成为欧洲最大的城市，拥有无数新建住房和基础设施项目，人口约1600万——超过大多数欧盟国家的人口。曾经构成伊斯坦布尔人口很大一部分的希腊人、亚美尼亚人和犹太人，如今只剩下零头。取而代之的是来自安纳托利亚的移民（包括库尔德人），以及最近来自中东的难民。