Who is The Melancholic Writers from Istanbul: Memories and the City and what is their importance?

Memoirist Abdulhak Sinasi Hisar, poet Yahya Kemal, novelist Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, and journalist/historian Resat Ekrem Kocu all lived within a short distance of Pamuk when he was growing up. The author, however, never met any of these men and often imagined what their lives must have been like. Although each of these writers tried to emulate the French writers who influenced them, they eventually wrote about the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire.