ABSTRACTThis paper explores Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's essay titled “Istanbul” (1946) and its translation into French by Paul Dumont (1996). Based on Roland Barthes's statement that a city is a “discourse” (Barthes [1967] 1985) and on Michaela Wolf's approach which follows Clifford Geertz's definition of culture as “montage of texts” (Wolf 1995), Tanpınar's essay is analyzed as a “translation” of the “text” inscribed in the city. By the same token, Tanpınar is assumed to be a “translator” ofIstanbul. Paul Dumont's translation into French is examined in a second step, as an interlingual translation of Tanpınar's translation ofIstanbul. In both cases, Tanpınar's andDumont's choices are discussed considering their relations to the city, their literary intentions as well as the social and historical contexts in which they produced their translations. It is argued that these narratives not only tell about the city but also about the “attitudes” (Hermans 2007) and  “cognitive states” (Boase-Beier 2003) of their translators (Tanpınar andDumont). It is also shown that the city is represented “metonymically” (Tymoczko 1999; 2000; Paker 2011) through the choices of its translators and that these metonyms of translation establish a symbolic order within which a city and its people are construed (Tymoczko 1999). Keywords: Urban narratives, city as text, metonymics of translation, translator's attitude, translator's cognitive state