inner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

’One of the greatest and most prophetic of political novelists.’ Guardian Books of the Year

’Inspired and impassioned’ New York Times

’Powerful, assured and engaging.’ Irish Times

A family gathers in the shadow of a revolution, until an outsider brings the action to their door

As the political tension from Turkey’s tumultuous struggle for modernity builds, an old widow Fatma waits with her faithful servant Recep for her grandchildren to descend for their annual visit. Faruk, a failed historian; his sensitive leftist sister, Nilgun; and Metin, a high school student who lives the fast life of the nouveaux riches while dreaming of escape.

The arrival of Recep’s nephew Hassan, who has recently fallen in with right-wing extremists, draws the family into the growing political cataclysm. As the country wavers towards tragedy, the family are forced to confront their past and decide where they stand.

ORHAN PAMUK

Returning to Turkey from exile in the West, the secular poet Ka is driven by curiosity to investigate a surprising wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden by the government to wear their head scarves in school. But the epicentre of the suicides, the bleak, impoverished border city of Kars, is also home to the beautiful Ipek, a friend of Ka’s youth whom he has never forgotten and whose spirited younger sister is a leader of the rebellious schoolgirls. As a fierce snowstorm descends, cutting them off from the world, violence between the military and local Islamic radicals begins to explode, and Ka finds his sympathies drawn in unexpected and dramatic directions.