Orhan Pamuk: The Black Book, Kartoniert / Broschiert

Rezension

"A glorious flight of dark, fantastic invention." - The Washington Post

"A splendid novel, as delicious to our mind's palate as a Turkish delight and as subtle . . . in its design as a Persian rug." - San Francisco Chronicle

"An extraordinary, tantalizing novel." - The Nation

"An inventive and . . . exuberant modern national epic." - Sunday Times (London)

Klappentext

A New Translation and Afterword by Maureen Freely

Galip is a lawyer living in Istanbul. His wife, the detective novel-loving Ruya, has disappeared. Could she have left him for her ex-husband or Celâl, a popular newspaper columnist? But Celâl, too, seems to have vanished. As Galip investigates, he finds himself assuming the enviable Celâl's identity, wearing his clothes, answering his phone calls, even writing his columns. Galip pursues every conceivable clue, but the nature of the mystery keeps changing, and when he receives a death threat, he begins to fear the worst.

With its cascade of beguiling stories about Istanbul, The Black Book is a brilliantly unconventional mystery, and a provocative meditation on identity. For Turkish literary readers it is the cherished cult novel in which Orhan Pamuk found his original voice, but it has largely been neglected by English-language readers. Now, in Maureen Freely's beautiful new translation, they, too, may encounter all its riches.

Auszüge aus dem Buch

Chapter One

The First Time Galip Saw Ruya

Never use epigraphs - they kill the mystery in the work!
- Adli

If that's how it has to die, go ahead and kill it; then kill the false prophets who sold you on the mystery in the first place!
- Bahti

Rüya was lying facedown on the bed, lost to the sweet warm darkness beneath the billowing folds of the blue-checked quilt. The first sounds of a winter morning seeped in from outside: the rumble of a passing car, the clatter of an old bus, the rattle of the copper kettles that the salep maker shared with the pastry cook, the whistle of the parking attendant at the dolmus stop. A cold leaden light filtered through the dark blue curtains. Languid with sleep, Galip gazed at his wife's head: Ruya's chin was nestling in the down pillow. The wondrous sights playing in her mind gave her an unearthly glow that pulled him toward her even as it suffused him with fear. ...