February 2010 Good Housekeeping selection.

‘It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn’t know it.’ So begins this exquisite book by Nobel Prize-winning Pamuk (author of My Name is Red), and a love affair that can only be played out surreptitiously, in the seamier quarters of Istanbul. Kemal is a young man from the fading bourgeoisie of Turkey about to marry into comfortable wealth, but his encounter with the stunning Füsun, a poor distant relative shamed out of Kemal’s family for competing in a beauty contest, creates a lasting emotional fissure. Pulled between his glittering circle and Füsun’s impoverished world, he begins to collect objects obsessively. An enchanting novel, seamlessly translated by writer Maureen Freely.

Synopsis

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. The novel depicts a panoramic view of life in Istanbul as it chronicles this long, obsessive, love affair between Kemal and Fusun; and Pamuk beautifully captures the identity crisis experienced by Istanbul's upper classes who find themselves caught between traditional and westernised ways of being. For the past ten years, Pamuk has been setting up a museum 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 museum will be called The Museum of Innocence and it opens in 2010.

Reviews

A New York Times Notable Book
One of the Best Books of the Year
Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Kansas City Star
“Spellbinding. . . . A resounding confirmation that Orhan Pamuk is one of the great novelists of his generation. With this book, he literally puts love in our hands.”
— The Washington Post
“Mesmerizing, brilliantly realized. . . . Deeply and compellingly explores the interplay between erotic obsession and sentimentality . . . . There is a master at work in this book. . . . Istanbul—its sounds, its smells, its history—permeates everything.”
— Los Angeles Times
“Intimate and nuanced…. A classic, spacious love story.”
—Pico Iyer,

The New York Review of Books
 
“Stunningly original. . . . Engrossing and sensual. . . . Granular and panoramic, satirical and yet grounded in reality. . . . Great writers have made the failed love stories

About the Author

Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952 into a family of engineers. He was educated in Istanbul at an American school. He dropped out of his architecture course to become a full-time writer and obtained a degree in journalism from Istanbul University. Since 1982, when his first novel was published to great acclaim, Pamuk has been one of Turkey's most successful authors. After three years in the USA, including a stint as visiting fellow at the University of Iowa, he returned to Istanbul, where he lives with his wife and daughter. In 1995 Pamuk was among a group of authors tried for criticising the Turkish regime's treatment of the Kurds in a book of essays exercising the freedom of speech. He is the author of seven novels. The White Castle won the 1990 Independent Award  for Foreign Fiction, and the publication of The New Life caused a sensation in his native land, becoming the fastest-selling book in Turkish history. In 2003 Pamuk was awarded the International IMPAC Award for My Name is Red. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation