The Innocence of Objects
The Nobel Prize winner’s catalog of his Istanbul museum is like “wandering past the illuminated windows of an arcade. . . . This book spills over with pleasure”(The New York Times). The culmination of decades of omnivorous collecting, Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul uses his novel of lost love, The Museum of Innocence, as a departure point to explore the city of his youth. In The Innocence of Objects, Pamuk’s catalog of this remarkable museum, he writes about things that matter deeply to him: the psychology of the collector, the proper role of the museum, the photography of old Istanbul (illustrated with Pamuk’s superb collection of haunting photographs and movie stills), and of course the customs and traditions of his beloved city. The book’s imagery is equally evocative, ranging from the ephemera of everyday life to the superb photographs of Turkish photographer Ara Güler. Combining compelling visual images and writing, The Innocence of Objects is an original work of art and literature.
The Museum of Innocence
The Museum of Innocence - set in Istanbul between 1975 and today - tells the story of Kemal, the son of one of Istanbul's richest families, and of his obsessive love for a poor and distant relation, the beautiful Fusun, who is a shop-girl in a small boutique. In his romantic pursuit of Füsun over the next eight years, Kemal compulsively amasses a collection of objects that chronicles his lovelorn progress-a museum that is both a map of a society and of his heart. The novel depicts a panoramic view of life in Istanbul as it chronicles this long, obsessive love affair; and Pamuk beautifully captures the identity crisis experienced by Istanbul's upper classes that find themselves caught between traditional and westernised ways of being. Orhan Pamuk's first novel since winning the Nobel Prize is a stirring love story and exploration of the nature of romance. Pamuk built The Museum of Innocence in the house in which his hero's fictional family lived, to display Kemal's strange collection of objects associated with Fusun and their relationship. The house opened to the public in 2012 in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul. 'Pamuk has created a work concerning romantic love worthy to stand in the company of Lolita, Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina.' --Financial Times
Istanbul
From the Nobel Prize winner and acclaimed author of My Name is Red comes a portrait of Istanbul by its foremost writer, revealing the melancholy that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire. "Delightful, profound, marvelously origina.... Pamuk tells the story of the city through the eyes of memory." —The Washington Post Book World A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share. With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters—both Turkish and foreign—who would shape his consciousness of his city. Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.
The Innocence of Memories
The Innocence of Memories is an important addition to the oeuvre of Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk. Comprised of the screenplay of the acclaimed film by Grant Gee from 2015 (by the same name), a transcript of the author and filmmaker in conversation, and captivating colour stills, it is an essential volume for understanding Pamuk's work. Drawing on the themes from Pamuk's best-selling books, The Museum of Innocence, Istanbul and The Black Book, this book is both an accompaniment to the author's previous publications and a wonderfully revelatory exploration of Orhan Pamuk's key ideas about art, love, and memory.
Nights Of Plague
It is April 1900, in the Levant, on the imaginary island of Mingheria-the twenty-ninth state of the Ottoman Empire-located in the eastern Mediterranean between Crete and Cyprus. Half the population is Muslim, the other half are Orthodox Greeks, and tension is high between the two. When a plague arrives-brought either by Muslim pilgrims returning from the Mecca or by merchant vessels coming from Alexandria-the island revolts. To stop the epidemic, the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II sends his most accomplished quarantine expert to the island-an Orthodox Christian. Some of the Muslims, including followers of a popular religious sect and its leader Sheikh Hamdullah, refuse to take precautions or respect the quarantine. And then a murder occurs. As the plague continues its rapid spread, the Sultan sends a second doctor to the island, this time a Muslim, and strict quarantine measures are declared. But the incompetence of the island's governor and local administration and the people's refusal to respect the bans doom the quarantine to failure, and the death count continues to rise. Faced with the danger that the plague might spread to the West and to Istanbul, the Sultan bows to international pressure and allows foreign and Ottoman warships to blockade the island. Now the people of Mingheria are on their own, and they must find a way to defeat the plague themselves. Steeped in history and rife with suspense, Nights of Plague is an epic story set more than one hundred years ago, with themes that feel remarkably contemporary.
