Galata area of their settlement. These walls, including the mid-14th-century Galata Tower (originally "Christea Turris", "Tower of Christ", and completed in 1348) survived largely intact until the 19th century, when most were dismantled in order to allow further urban expansion towards the northern neighbourhoods of Beyoğlu, Beşiktaş, and beyond. At present, only a small portion of the Genoese walls are still standing, in the vicinity of the Galata Tower. Designed as an identical copy of the 13th century Palazzo San Giorgio in Genoa, the palace of the Genoese podestà of Galata, Montano de Marinis (which was known as the "Palazzo del
The World Is What It Is in 1996. The biography has been extensively reviewed: the reviewers include Paul Theroux, who wrote an earlier book about Naipaul. The biography was selected by the editors of the "New York Times Book Review" as one of the "Times"' "10 Best Books of 2008". It won the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, and the British literary award the Hawthornden Prize. The World Is What It Is The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul is a biography of the Nobel Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul by Patrick French. It was published in