The Black Book

From the Publisher

When Galip, an Istanbul lawyer, searches for his missing wife at her newspaper columnist brother's flat, he finds the brother, Jelal, also missing and assumes Jelal's identity while trying to solve the mystery.

Review

Observer (London)
"[THE BLACK BOOK is] a love song to Istanbul and a subtle allegory of deconstruction, but, above all, it is a celebration of storytelling, an art increasingly rare in a world of gossip and faddism. THE BLACK BOOK is a deliciously infuriating, haunting and richly imaginative shaggy dog story and a maze of touching, humorous tales."

Review

Abbas Milani - San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"'Black Book' is a tour de force of irreverent ideas, labyrinthine plot and bold and playful innovations, rendered into supple and suave English by translator Guneli Gun, herself an accomplished Turkish-American novelist."

More about the book

An unorthodox and mesmerizing mystery from Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, THE BLACK BOOK is a literary detective story that questions the nature of identity and the meaning of narrative. When a Turkish lawyer named Galip's beloved wife disappears without a trace, he becomes convinced that there is a connection with the disappearance of a noted newspaper columnist named Celal. As he delves into Celal's life, Galip finds himself assuming the man's identity, even to the point of writing his columns. These columns become a kind of holy scripture for a secret society that believes the articles prophesy the appearance of a Marxist-Sufi messiah. As Pamuk spins out increasingly strange and tantalizing strands of narrative--conspiracy theories, death threats, and red herrings--his protagonist and the book's reader plunge deeper into the lush and labyrinthine world of Istanbul.