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My Name Is Red

By orhan pamuk, a philosophical art mystery.

Huh. I liked this book in theory. My Name is Red reads like a philosophical mystery, except it’s only about art philosophy. It’s a story about a murder among a group of miniaturists (which are basically artists), and it is set in the Ottoman Empire. The book itself was originally written in Turkish.

The idea is that they are working on book of illustrations that reflects a style that is considered to be sacrilegious in that it is considered idolatry, detracting from the glorification of God, etc. Among them, there has been a murder of one of the miniaturists. There’s more to the plot line than just this, but the main crux of the novel is how the main character, Black, investigates by speaking to the suspects regarding their views on various aspects of art, while at the same time the unidentified murderer discusses his thoughts as well.

Theoretically, you should be trying to figure out who is the murderer based on these discussions of art philosophy. It was good in terms of writing, pacing, etc., but I think my appreciation of this book is largely on an academic level. If you think you’d enjoy theoretical discourses on art, for example considering what “is” art and whether things like personal style detracts from art and the representation of “truth,” then you’d probably love this book. It might be a little inaccessible to some, but it’s definitely worth a read for art lovers or anyone looking to venture into very well-written, but unfamiliar territory.

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That's What She Read

Review: My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk

Orhan Pamuk has been on my list of writers to sample for a while. I started with My Name Is Red because its focus on illuminated manuscripts appealed to me. I disregarded the reviews which suggested this is not the ‘best’ place to start with Pamuk. Alas, I was cocky. I thought my knowledge of history, memories of Istanbul, and hours spent copying/painting manuscripts would give me a leg up. They didn’t. I’ve read books set in unfamiliar cultures before, but My Name Is Red feels truly foreign and reminiscent of that moment in Istanbul when I realized Turkish is a tricky language. But instead of squinting at signs, I was scratching my head at Pamuk’s mythical, artistic, and philosophical diversions. In all cases, something was familiar, but I was miles away.

From the back cover: At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of sixteenth-century Istanbul. The Sultan has commissioned a cadre of the most acclaimed artists in the land to create a great book celebrating the glories of his realm. Their task: to illuminate the work in the European style. But because figurative art can be deemed an affront to Islam, this commission is a dangerous proposition indeed. And when one of the chosen miniaturists disappears, the only clue to the mystery lies in the half-finished illuminations themselves. Part fantasy and part philosophical puzzle, My Name Is Red is a kaleidoscope journey into the intersection of art, religion, love, sex, and power.

There are scenes in this book that don’t require outside knowledge to appreciate. The story is told from a rotating set of perspectives that includes a corpse, dog, gold coin, and various illustrations. Chapters are titled “I Am a Corpse,” “I Am Called Black,” “I Am a Dog,” “I Will Be Called a Murderer,” and so on. The language/tone is regulated so that even reading the perspective of the murdered man and the murderer isn’t enough for a reader to sniff out the guilty party. There are particularly brilliant moments when the perspective shifts within a scene to allow multiple characters to comment in the moment rather than through retrospectives. There’s something cinematic about this: I imagine a camera moving around a room, changing views, zooming in, then panning out. When drawings or props speak, they offer new angles on their owners so everyone is seen inside and out, even if they’re alone. A favorite section is narrated by a gold coin and begins grandly:

Behold! I am a twenty-two-carat Ottoman Sultani gold coin and I bear the glorious insignia of His Excellency Our Sultan, Refuge of the World. … Hello, hello, greetings to all the master artists and assorted guests. Your eyes widen as you behold my glimmer, you thrill as I shimmer in the light of the oil lamp, and finally you bristle with envy at my owner. (102)

But gives way to a woeful confession:

All right then, I confess. I’m not a genuine twenty-two-carat Ottoman Sultani gold coin minted at the Chemberlitash Mint. I’m counterfeit. They made me in Venice using adulturated gold and brought me here, passing me off as twenty-two-carat Ottoman gold. Your sympathy and understanding are much obliged. (103)

This gold coin—with its humble secret, grand tales of being passed through the streets of Istanbul, and fear of being hoarded in a jar—has more (and better) ‘character’ development than human characters in crummy novels.

I enjoy this kind of diversion because the coin’s journey produced memorable descriptions of the people and city. Other meanderings have less obvious pay-offs. Pamuk includes a fair amount of myths and stories. Some read like Aesop’s fables, but the morals given at their close will not be familiar to western audiences. They take time from a cleverly built whodunnit, but their thematic framework illuminates the main action. My Name Is Red is plainly written for a Turkish audience (and it’s written in Turkish), but these stories allow it to be intelligible to a western audience as well.

The philosophy and mystery are great, but the love triangle is a shaky business. The woman, Shekure, must choose between her brother-in-law whom she dislikes (her husband is missing, presumed dead) and her old flame. She’s clearly written by a man and I had a hard time taking her seriously. Also strange is the fact that Shekure’s two children are named Shevket and Orhan. Shevket is the name of Orhan Pamuk’s older brother in real life, Shekure is the name of his mother, and Orhan is his own first name. Does this mean something? So glad to be out of school—this is the kind of thing that would require an essay on my least favorite subject: authorial intent.

(“What does this mean?” is the theme of this review by the way.)

Looking at the back cover now, I see the mystery is given little mention next to the talk of art. This book is more easily sold to a philosopher/artist/historian than someone looking for a cerebral mystery to take to the beach (where I read a portion). As such, it’s hard to summarize, but if you’re into these subjects and have time to read slowly and carefully, I expect you’ll be impressed by My Name Is Red .

Overall: 4.2 (out of 5.0) This book was more difficult than expected and I suspect it was largely wasted on me, but even I can see the tremendous writing skill. The balance of voices is extraordinary and, even though the mystery is a much smaller element than I wanted, the diversions were thoughtfully and beautifully phrased (if not well-paced).

Translation: Help me find another book by Pamuk. He’s plainly worth reading, but I’m not sure this was the one for me.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red

Analysis of Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on August 2, 2023

My Name Is Red , the recipient of the International Impac Dublin Literary Award in 2003, is perhaps the most celebrated book by the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (1952– ), who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2006. The novel, which is superficially a murder mystery, details the artistic and philosophical conflicts that surround Ottoman miniaturist painters during the 16th century.

Pamuk tells his story through a number of short chapters spoken in the voices of different narrators that range from inanimate objects drawn on paper to the central characters (including Enishte, a miniaturist commissioned by the sultan to produce a secret book of illustrations; his daughter Shekure; and his nephew Black, who returns from exile in the East). The different voices, and the novel itself, further the contemporary Turkish debate over the impact of Western culture as Turkey seeks to create a coherent identity for its multicultural populace. In addition to the main story, the reader is presented with a subplot: The rekindling of the childhood love between Black and Shekure provides a glimpse of a woman’s life in the Ottoman Empire. Well aware of Enishte’s declining reputation and popularity among fellow miniaturists due to the secret book, Black takes it upon himself to protect himself and his daughter. In this way he hopes to win Shekure’s heart and convince her of a speedy divorce from her estranged husband in order for him to marry her.

Orhan Pamuk Via Border Kitchen

The first narrative belongs to the corpse of a miniaturist in the Ottoman court, Elegant Efendi, who reveals that his death is a result of religious conspiracy designed to suppress the artistic innovations introduced from the West. Both Elegant and Enishte have been attentive to the new forms of painting in the West. In their attempts to incorporate Western portraiture into their traditional miniatures, they anger extremists who perceive the West as a threat to the preservation of Ottoman culture.

By foregrounding the discrepancy between the Eastern and Western modes of seeing and representing, Pamuk sets the stage for a discussion of the conflicts that have influenced the relationship between East and West. He also observes how different artistic visions can become political matters in a society struggling to find its identity amid tensions between liberals and conservatives. While progressive miniaturists are enthusiastic about incorporating Western techniques, the fundamentalists condemn the West’s emphasis on originality, individual style, and autonomous subject matter, fearing that such depictions are sacrilegious.

A mouthpiece for extreme conservatism, the murderer, whose voice we hear without learning his identity, maintains that miniature painting should stick to the basic philosophical principles of Islamic decorum. In Islam, painting is deemed blasphemous, for the Koran explicitly prohibits pictorial representations to avoid idolatry. Within strict parameters, Muslim artists work with sophisticated forms of gilding, ornamentation, and miniature—the only acceptable forms of representational art. The art of miniature compels the artist to represent visually the symbolic rather than individual nature of objects, adopting an elevated viewpoint to emulate the way Allah sees the world from above. Any challenge to these principles, according to the murderer, is an affront to religion. The characters who remain open to change, like Enishte and Elegant, also consider themselves devout Muslims, but they explain that their effort to embrace foreign innovations does not reflect a desire to become Westernized; rather, they believe that artistic traditions are better served by incorporating difference.

The separation between the affairs of the state and religion, in this and other novels, is crucial for Pamuk, who believes that religion is a private practice that should therefore have no weight in political discussions. Pamuk identifies secularism as a condition of modernity. The insider/outsider binary of religion, he observes, often threatens the fundamental principles of a multicultural society.

My Name Is Red is a testament to the crisis of identity that the Ottomans suffered and bequeathed to modern Turkey. Pamuk indicates the futility of the fundamentalist position, underlining that cultural exchange should not be equated with loss of identity; on the contrary, just as the Ottoman miniaturists have borrowed from the masters of Herat in the East to perfect their techniques, they should also recognize the value in innovations from the West. Liberal artists such as Elegant and Enishte understand the value of harmonizing different ways of seeing. For this reason, Enishte’s acceptance of the sultan’s commission is not just an artistic endeavor, but a political act that advocates a more productive relationship between East and West, and Elegant’s murder is a warning about the extremes to which some will go to prevent that new relationship from taking root.

Analysis of Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book

BIBLIOGRAPHY Freeman, John. “In Snow, an Apolitical Poet Mirrors Apolitical Pamuk.” Village Voice, 17 August 2004. Pamuk, Orhan. “The Anger of the Damned.” New York Review of Books 18. 15 November 2001. ———. The Black Book. Translated by Güneli Gün. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1996. ———. “Freedom to Write.” New York Review of Books, 25 May 2006. ———. Istanbul: Memories of a City. Translated by Maureen Freely. London: Faber and Faber, 2005.

My Name Is Red

Orhan Pamuk and Erdag Gokna | 3.93 | 44,378 ratings and reviews

Ranked #2 in Turkey , Ranked #3 in Turkish — see more rankings .

Rankings by Category

My Name Is Red is ranked in the following categories:

#99 in Copenhagen
#83 in Dublin
#45 in Middle East
#24 in Nobel

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My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

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A- : beguiling, if also a bit laboured

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Consensus : Impressed, and quite a few find it absolutely brilliant From the Reviews : "While My Name Is Red has a many-layered plot -- including a murder mystery and a love story -- its thematic value is threefold: to provide a glimpse into an Islamic society, to understand the global tensions that exist when one empire waxes while another wanes, and to point out the cyclical nature of history." - Char Simons, Christian Science Monitor "Less forgivable, however, is the fact that his various suspects are insufficiently differentiated from each other, so that in the end we simply don't care who the murderer is. In a lesser novel this would be a terminal flaw. But no writer as elusive as Pamuk can write an uninteresting book, and as a meditation on art, in particular, My Name Is Red is exquisitely subtle, demanding and repaying the closest attention." - Tom Holland, Daily Telegraph "It is an enlightening, though eerie, experience to read this book at the present moment. For its theme is a clash of cultures -- between a religious tradition which subordinates man to God, and a new-fangled individualism which places man at the centre of the universe." - The Economist "Rot ist freilich auch die Farbe der Liebe. Pamuks verwirrend schöner Roman erzählt deshalb, wie fast jeder gute Kriminalroman, zugleich eine wunderbare Liebesgeschichte. (...) Dieser Roman ist ein wunderbar reiches Stück Weltliteratur." - Ernst Osterkamp, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "This is a novel of ideas and a meditation on how east and west might meet. It is also an example of what has been a popular genre in recent decades: the historical mystery." - John Mullan, The Guardian "Man wird nicht müde, Pamuk zu lesen, denn wieder hat er ein sprachliches Kunstwerk geschaffen, schildert in tausendundein Farben ein Intrigenspiel um Liebe und Tod, um Tradition und den Aufbruch in die Moderne, das in vergangenen osmanischen Zeiten handelt und doch auf das Heute abzielt." - Monika Carbe, Neue Zürcher Zeitung "He has taken his inspiration from western modernist literature, but instead of destroying his 16th-century artists, he illuminates their world as no one has before. (...) More than any other book I can think of, it captures not just its past and present contradictions, but also its terrible, timeless beauty. It's almost perfect, in other words." - Maureen Freely, New Statesman " My Name Is Red is not just a novel of ideas. Eastern or Western, good or bad, ideas precipitate once they sink to human level, unleashing passions and violence. Red is chockful of sublimity and sin. (...) To sum up, and each time the sums come out different: the ideas in Red give fascination and energy, and work to hold together its turbulent narrative. They work and they fail; and in a way, though not entirely, the failure is Pamuk's success." - Richard Eder, The New York Times Book Review "Pamuk, however, is not at all didactic; rather, he simply displays the cultural dynamics at work. As in Faulkner's As I Lay Dying , the story's baton is handed from one character to another and moves through time, producing a clever narrative scheme we only wholly grasp on the last page." - Allen Hibbard, Review of Contemporary Fiction "(A) huge and ambitious novel that is by turns charming and pedantic. (...) Here, the ingredients are potent, but the balance is off. Like an overenthusiastic master illustrator, Pamuk paints a vivid picture, but loads it with so many details and symbols that the eye has nowhere calm to rest." - Sarah Coleman, San Francisco Chronicle "This novel is then formally brilliant, witty and about serious matters. But even this inclusive description does not really capture what I feel is the book's true greatness, which lies in its managing to do with apparent ease what novelists have always striven for but very few achieve. It conveys in a wholly convincing manner the emotional, cerebral and physical texture of daily life, and it does so with great compassion, generosity and humanity." - Dick Davis, Times Literary Supplement Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

The complete review 's Review :

My death conceals an appalling conspiracy against our religion, our traditions and the way we see the world.

About the Author :

Internationally acclaimed Turkish author Orhan Pamuk was born in 1952. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2006.

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Heresies of the Paintbrush

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By Richard Eder

Sept. 2, 2001

MY NAME IS RED

By Orhan Pamuk.

Translated by Erdag M. Goknor.

417 pp. New York:

Alfred A. Knopf. $25.95.

Time's deletions, like a computer's, are not really deleted. A technician can restore what the keyboard has made to vanish, and the past is never quite gone. Historical change deteriorates and slides back; defeat hangs around, sometimes for centuries, awaiting the chance to become victory. Not only did the South rise again; it went Republican.

Proust was literature's foremost artificer at undeleting an individual's memory. The Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, whose intricate intrusions of past into present have been compared to Proust's, works on the memory of a nation and a civilization.

Kemal Ataturk obliterated every vestige of the once-powerful, long-tottering 600-year Ottoman Empire. He decreed Westernization: Islam was restricted, fezzes and veils were out, the grand accretions of Persian and Arabic in the Turkish language were annulled to the point where Turks today can find it hard to read poems only a century old.

Pamuk himself, now in his 40's, began as a literary Westernizer, though set against the oppressiveness and corruption of Ataturk's heirs. He gorged on European and American literature, studied at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and adopted a contemporary blend of modernist and postmodernist techniques. He wrote of the stagnation and backwardness that 80 years of modernization had not only failed to eradicate but, across broad expanses of Turkish geography and society, had barely touched.

He is not an ideologue or a politician or a journalist. He is a novelist and a great one (nobody -- other than a small committee of Swedes -- could rule out a Nobel). His job is not to denounce reality but to be haunted by it, as a medium is haunted.

The reality that possesses him is that Turkey's attempt to obliterate the Ottoman heritage in Turkey hacked away roots. It aimed not just at what was retrograde but at what was still stubbornly alive and perhaps precious. (It may have been futile, in any case, as the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism could suggest.)

Not to denounce the reality that haunts you does not mean to praise it. It is more a matter of speaking in a medium's divided voices -- a painful division and, in the case of Pamuk, both confusing and exhilarating. Three of his earlier dissonant-voiced novels have been published and critically praised here, but not widely read.

The new one, ''My Name Is Red,'' is by far the grandest and most astonishing contest in Pamuk's internal East-West war. Translated with fluid grace by Erdag M. Goknor, the novel is set in the late 16th century, during the reign of Sultan Murat III, a patron of the miniaturists whose art had come over from Persia in the course of the previous hundred years. It was a time when the Ottomans' confidence in unstoppable empire had begun to be shaken by the power of the West -- their defeat at Lepanto had taken place only a few years earlier -- as well as by its cultural vitality and seductiveness. (A chronology is given at the end; venturers into Pamuk should consult it at the start.)

The story, in a nutshell (containing multitudes), tells of two murders among Murat's court artists; one of Elegant, a master miniaturist, the other of Enishte, a cunningly complicated figure commissioned by the sultan to produce a book by his four finest artists, Elegant among them. The book is secret; the miniaturists only dimly suspect what it will amount to, and they barely admit to themselves the radically nontraditional nature of Enishte's commission.

Theirs is a secrecy of terror and shame: terror of being branded for heresy by the powerful Muslim clergy and punished by the sultan, whose dangerously elusive intentions are hidden from them. Shame, because they are imbued with the tradition they are violating, even as they both long and dread to violate it.

The art of classic miniature -- implying here a much wider kind of order -- depicts figures with great beauty and variety but ritually, impersonally and without individual characters or expressions. The paintings stand not as themselves but strictly as illustrations of text. The style the sultan's artists are surreptitiously instructed to adopt, on the other hand, is that of the Italian Renaissance. Figures are individual, portraits are of specific people, and even trees and dogs are particulars. These paintings are not illustrations; they stand as works of art in their own right.

Why should this be heresy? For one thing, Islam enjoined against figuration; if miniatures were allowed it was because they were generic, a decoration of the text and subordinate to it. To portray individuals or objects for their own sake and without cover of words was to give them iconic standing. What made it worse was the introduction of perspective. A mosque far off would be smaller than a man, or even his dog, close up. People and things, the objection went, ''weren't depicted according to their importance in Allah's mind but as they appeared to the naked eye.''

Noncommitally, Pamuk sets out these rock-hard orthodoxies. Clearly he has no use for fatwas or fundamentalist rage. Elsewhere, though -- his own civil war is fought on both sides with exquisite weapons -- he sympathetically refines the implications. These, in fact, brush up against our own tradition's questioning of the place of art. Does it create its own order (or disorder) or does it discover, serve and bring out a larger, timeless order (or disorder)? One of the most beautiful passages in a book that abounds in them is the near-Rilkean discourse of Master Osman, the head miniaturist and a stubbornly mystical traditionalist. Lovingly, he evokes a classic miniature that illustrates the legend of the lovers Husrev and Shirin.

''It's as if the lovers are to remain here eternally within the light emanating from the painting's texture, skin and subtle colors which were applied lovingly by the miniaturist. You can see how their faces are turned ever so slightly toward one another while their bodies are half-turned toward us -- for they know they're in a painting and thus visible to us. This is why they don't try to resemble exactly those figures which we see around us. Quite to the contrary, they signify that they've emerged from Allah's memory.''

There are other engrossing elaborations of an ''Eastern'' concept of art, in which all painting is an act of memory and foreordained, and blindness is the ideal condition for creating pure art, being free of sensory distraction and temptation. But ''My Name Is Red'' is not just a novel of ideas. Eastern or Western, good or bad, ideas precipitate once they sink to human level, unleashing passions and violence. ''Red'' is chockful of sublimity and sin.

The story is told by each of a dozen characters, and now and then by a dog, a tree, a gold coin, several querulous corpses and the color crimson (''My Name Is Red''). It concerns investigation of the murders, the tales of the three master miniaturists who survive Elegant -- one of them the killer -- and Master Osman's long (considerably too long) perusal of the classic Persian miniatures in the sultan's library. Also myriad other incidents, scenes and characters gyrating wildly in an era of seismic shift.

Finally, and most precious, there is the passionate pursuit by Black, the murdered Enishte's deputy, of Enishte's daughter Sekure. Elusive, changeable, enigmatic and immensely beguiling, she is the finest portrait in the book. Not a portrait, in fact: a Persian miniature. Her body is half turned toward us, as if she were in a painting and not a flesh-and-blood figure.

It is Black, turbulent, striving, at times absurd, who is flesh and blood. Their marriage is the union, always unfathomable and unsettled, of flat miniature and Renaissance perspective, of stylized image and individual portrait, of Eastern art and Western.

To sum up, and each time the sums come out different: the ideas in ''Red'' give fascination and energy, and work to hold together its turbulent narrative. They work and they fail; and in a way, though not entirely, the failure is Pamuk's success. No story of the darker churnings of the Ottoman regime, its rule by secrets, lies, conspiracies and chaos, would be real if it were lucid. Readers will have spells of feeling lost and miserable in a deliberate unreliability that so mirrors its subject: a world governed by fog.

They will also be lofted by the paradoxical lightness and gaiety of the writing, by the wonderfully winding talk perpetually about to turn a corner, and by the stubborn humanity in the characters' maneuvers to survive. It is a humanity whose lies and silences emerge as endearing and oddly bracing individual truths.

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MY NAME IS RED

by Orhan Pamuk & translated by Erdag Göknar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2001

A rich feast of ideas, images, and lore.

Acclaimed Turkish writer Pamuk ( The New Life , 1997, etc.) investigates two brutal murders—and offers a whimsical but provocative exploration of the nature of art in an Islamic society.

My Name is Red speaks in many voices, some more predominant than others. A dog, a tree, and a horse as well as Death, Satan, and a corpse all make eloquent contributions to the narrative, but center stage are Black the clerk, the Murderer, Esther the Jewish matchmaker, and Shekure, recently married to Black. The setting is Istanbul in the late 1500s—a period of time that saw the Ottoman Empire at its height but increasingly challenged by the innovative West. Prohibited by the Koran to paint realistic likenesses, the Islamic miniaturists of Istanbul have for centuries done stylized pictures of people, plants, and horses. Their informing belief has been that art should reflect what Allah sees from above, but when a new Sultan commissions a book from noted artist Enishte Effendi that will include a portrait of the Sultan in the Western style, reactionary artists and mullahs become alarmed. After a noted engraver and Enishte are found murdered, the Sultan demands the killer be found or all the miniaturists will be put to death. Black, Enishte’s nephew, becomes involved in the investigation. He consults with the famous miniaturist Master Osman, who senses that an era is ending and blinds himself, as well as with the artists working on the book with his late uncle Enishte. With nicknames like Butterfly, Stork, and Olive, these artists reminisce and discuss the difference between Western and Islamic art while proclaiming their innocence. Threatened with torture by the Sultan, Black finally gets his man—not to mention the respect of his new bride.

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2001

ISBN: 0-375-40695-6

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001

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NORMAL PEOPLE

by Sally Rooney ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2019

Absolutely enthralling. Read it.

A young Irish couple gets together, splits up, gets together, splits up—sorry, can't tell you how it ends!

Irish writer Rooney has made a trans-Atlantic splash since publishing her first novel, Conversations With Friends , in 2017. Her second has already won the Costa Novel Award, among other honors, since it was published in Ireland and Britain last year. In outline it's a simple story, but Rooney tells it with bravura intelligence, wit, and delicacy. Connell Waldron and Marianne Sheridan are classmates in the small Irish town of Carricklea, where his mother works for her family as a cleaner. It's 2011, after the financial crisis, which hovers around the edges of the book like a ghost. Connell is popular in school, good at soccer, and nice; Marianne is strange and friendless. They're the smartest kids in their class, and they forge an intimacy when Connell picks his mother up from Marianne's house. Soon they're having sex, but Connell doesn't want anyone to know and Marianne doesn't mind; either she really doesn't care, or it's all she thinks she deserves. Or both. Though one time when she's forced into a social situation with some of their classmates, she briefly fantasizes about what would happen if she revealed their connection: "How much terrifying and bewildering status would accrue to her in this one moment, how destabilising it would be, how destructive." When they both move to Dublin for Trinity College, their positions are swapped: Marianne now seems electric and in-demand while Connell feels adrift in this unfamiliar environment. Rooney's genius lies in her ability to track her characters' subtle shifts in power, both within themselves and in relation to each other, and the ways they do and don't know each other; they both feel most like themselves when they're together, but they still have disastrous failures of communication. "Sorry about last night," Marianne says to Connell in February 2012. Then Rooney elaborates: "She tries to pronounce this in a way that communicates several things: apology, painful embarrassment, some additional pained embarrassment that serves to ironise and dilute the painful kind, a sense that she knows she will be forgiven or is already, a desire not to 'make a big deal.' " Then: "Forget about it, he says." Rooney precisely articulates everything that's going on below the surface; there's humor and insight here as well as the pleasure of getting to know two prickly, complicated people as they try to figure out who they are and who they want to become.

Pub Date: April 16, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-984-82217-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Hogarth

Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019

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BOOK TO SCREEN

THE SECRET HISTORY

by Donna Tartt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1992

The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992

ISBN: 1400031702

Page Count: 592

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

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My Name is Red

Orhan pamuk, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

My Name is Red: Introduction

My name is red: plot summary, my name is red: detailed summary & analysis, my name is red: themes, my name is red: quotes, my name is red: characters, my name is red: symbols, my name is red: theme wheel, brief biography of orhan pamuk.

Historical Context of My Name is Red

Other books related to my name is red.

Full Title: My Name is Red (Turkish: Benim Adım Kırmızı )
When Written: 1990-92, 1994-98
Where Written: Istanbul, Turkey
When Published: 1998 (English translation 2001)
Literary Period: Contemporary Turkish fiction
Genre: Historical thriller
Setting: Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, 1591
Climax: When Black forces the needle into Olive’s eyes and Olive confesses that he is the murderer.
Antagonist: The murderer / Hasan / The Hoja of Erzurum
Point of View: 12 different first-person narrators

Extra Credit for My Name is Red

Positive thinking. Despite the prominence of murder and death in the narrative, Pamuk calls My Name is Red “my most colorful and optimistic novel.”

Miniature painting on display. Nowadays, collections of Ottoman illuminated manuscripts can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the British Library in London, and the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul.

Review of My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk

My Name Is Red

by Orhan Pamuk

This is the second work of historical fiction I’ve read in a month that has a colour in its title and features art as a significant component of its story. The other, Sacré Bleu , was an irreverent “comedy d’art” by Christopher Moore. My Name is Red definitely isn’t that. Good thing I like to read widely!

My Name is Red opens with the voice of a dead man. Elegant Effendi describes the sensations of knowing he is dead, of his spirit decoupling from his body. He hopes his murderer will be found and brought to justice (the more creative the better). From there, Orhan Pamuk goes on to hop perspectives every chapter, weaving a story of magic and mystery in sixteenth-century Istanbul. Centred around a workshop of miniaturists who are working on a somewhat controversial book for the Sultan, My Name is Red dips into some of the questions raised in the sixteenth century as the Ottoman Empire continued to coexist uneasily next to the Christian nations of Western Europe. The time is the past and the setting is, as always, that battleground between change and tradition.

This book reminds me a lot of The Name of the Rose . Superficially they have so many similarities: both are translations, one from Turkish and one from Italian. Both are set in the past and involve a murder mystery. Both are written in a style that is, if not challenging, then definitely demanding of one’s full attention. Beyond the surface, though, the striking similarities continue: both of these novels are about the tension between different schools of thought. In The Name of the Rose it’s the growing chasm between science and religion, between the empirical principles of Bacon and Occam and the spiritual communion of the Franciscans and Dominicans. In My Name is Red it’s the clash between the older, traditional ways of depicting people in Islamic art and the new style imported from Venice—a style that, some worry, comes too close to the real thing. And in both these novels, the murders are inextricably linked to these questions of style, change, and tradition.

I can see why many people express frustration over this book’s narration. It’s not the easiest book to read. Translated from Turkish, My Name is Red doesn’t always have the same kind of unity and coherence that a novel originally written in English might have. Moreover, Pamuk has very little time for dialogue. Most of the book is either description or introspection from the narrator to the reader. My Name is Red reminds me of a stage play. In each scene, several actors would be in tableaux while the narrator of the scene delivers an extensive monologue. Then, with a flourish, he or she triggers the action, the other actors unfreeze, and the plot drags forward for a few minutes before the narrator re-assumes control. Although i understand why some people see the narrators as flat, I thought the moments when they comment on their actions, their drawings or letter-writing or courting, were quite confessional. Just the character and I in a musty, dark room, as the character hurriedly scribbles out the journal of their last days. One of them is a murderer ….

Thanks to the way Pamuk structures the novel, attempting to discover the identity of the murderer is half the fun. The murderer narrates both as himself and as his ordinary miniaturist alter ego, always careful never to reveal anything about his actions as a miniaturist that would shed light on his identity. So, for example, Pamuk has each of the three suspect miniaturists tell three parables labelled Aliph, Bet, Djim, allowing the murderer to refer to these stories without revealing which miniaturist he is. But the clues are there, getting louder as the novel approaches the climax and the identity of the murderer is revealed. I was sure it was one miniaturist pretty early on—and I was wrong. So it goes.

The miniaturists’ chapters are also very interesting looks at the ongoing debate regarding Islamic versus Western art. Is it sacrilege to paint in the Frankish style? What is style, anyway? Is it sacrilege to have one’s own style, rather than labouring to faithfully reproduce the old pieces as flawlessly as possible? True flawlessness, of course, just like true creativity, is the domain of Allah and not something a mere human artist could achieve. These questions spill over beyond the miniaturists’ chapters, however, and into the concurrent love story between Shekure and Black and the murder mystery itself. The ideas Pamuk juggles are particularly appropriate to the context of the story, but they are timeless and still relevant today.

Above all else, Pamuk manages to convey how personal the process of making and rendering art can be. Making art is a thoughtful, time-consuming activity that can be as emotionally draining as it is physically. The crises of faith experienced in My Name is Red are all too real. They happen as a result of the expression of self necessary for art to be possible: what you make, and how you make it, says something about yourself and your convictions, what you believe and the values you hold dear. To set that down on paper, in ink, in stone, on canvas, for others to view and discuss and rip apart … it’s a little terrifying. Worse still, in the act of such creation, you begin to think about these beliefs and sometimes even question them—or, through the influence of other creators, you realize that there are other sets of beliefs out there. Which ones are true, better, practical, enriching, etc.? Does it even matter?

So, you know, art is serious business. Serious enough in this case that someone was willing to kill Elegant Effendi for questioning if what they were doing was compatible with the wishes of Allah. On one hand, such actions seem like the same old, same old internecine and destructive effects of organized religion—but that would be a disingenuous and uncharitable evaluation. For on the other hand, the conflict in My Name is Red is less about religion and more about personal values that hinge upon the intersection of history, politics, faith, and art.

It took me a while to read My Name is Red , partly because I did so while moving to another country and partly because of its heavily stylized narration. But read it I did. While it did not necessarily excite me or enthrall me in the same way The Name of the Rose did, its meditations on the nature of art and artistry, style and sacrilege and sacrifice, are still interesting. It is a deep and thoughtful book; as long as you are willing to spend the time and effort on it, it is also a rewarding one.

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My Name Is Red Hardcover – Deckle Edge, August 28, 2001

Purchase options and add-ons.

Print length 448 pages
Language English
Publisher Knopf
Publication date August 28, 2001
Dimensions 7 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10 0375406956
ISBN-13 978-0375406959
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Editorial Reviews

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; First Edition (August 28, 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0375406956
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0375406959
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.7 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 1.5 x 9.75 inches
#29,086 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
#50,741 in Classic Literature & Fiction
#98,578 in Literary Fiction (Books)

About the authors

Orhan pamuk.

Orhan Pamuk, described as 'one of the freshest, most original voices in contemporary fiction' (Independent on Sunday), is the author of many books, including The White Castle, The Black Book and The New Life. In 2003 he won the International IMPAC Award for My Name is Red, and in 2004 Faber published the translation of his novel Snow, which The Times described as 'a novel of profound relevance to the present moment'. His most recent book was Istanbul, described by Jan Morris as 'irresistibly seductive'. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. He lives in Istanbul.

Photo by David Shankbone (Orhan Pamuk discusses his new book about love) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Erdağ M. Göknar

Erdağ Göknar is Associate Professor of Turkish and Middle East Studies at Duke University and an award-winning translator. His translation of Orhan Pamuk's historical novel MY NAME IS RED won the International Dublin Literary Award (2003), marking Pamuk's emergence as an author of world literature and contributing to his selection as Nobel laureate (2006). The best selling novel was reissued in 2010 as part of the Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics series. Göknar is also the translator of A.H. Tanpınar's iconic novel of Istanbul, A MIND AT PEACE, and Atiq Rahimi's anti-war novella set in Afghanistan, EARTH AND ASHES. His critical literary study, ORHAN PAMUK, SECULARISM, AND BLASPHEMY: THE POLITICS OF THE TURKISH NOVEL (Routledge 2013), argues that the productive tension between Turkish Islam and state secularism give Pamuk's work currency as world literature. Göknar's poetry collection, NOMADOLOGIES (Turtle Point 2017), engages themes of Turkish-American diaspora.

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Created by Yanping Zhang , last modified by Teoman Kenn Kucuk on May 08, 2015

My Name is Red

'My Name is Red' (Turkish: Benim Adım Kırmızı) is a 1998 historical novel written by Turkish novelist and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. The work, which Pamuk describes as his "most colorful and optimistic novel” 1 , is set in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul and spans nine winter days in the year 1591.The work addresses the clash between cultural conservatism and reform within a growingly international Ottoman Empire that faces the challenges of straddling multiple continents and creating political and cultural connections with vastly different cultures. The story is told through the eyes of multiple characters, and draws on the literary traditions of the region, whether this be through the chapters that imitate the style of the storyteller, the meddah , or through the tradition of stories within stories. The novel also utilises metafiction, through constant referral to the narration by the various narrators, the integration of stories that reflect the plot and other methods.

My Name is Red first edition Turkish cover designed by Hakkı Mısıroğlu ( Link )

Plot Summary

My Name is Red, set in late 16th-century Istanbul, revolves around the controversy surrounding the recent request made by the Ottoman Sultan for the preparation of a book that includes paintings prepared in a European fashion, with emphasis being put on the realism and detail of the specimens depicted to impress the current Doge of Venice, yet pulling away from the traditional methods of the miniaturists ( Nakkaş ) who are asked to prepare it. The Sultan entrusts the wealthy Eni ş te Efendi (lit. sir Uncle) to gather and contact the artists necessary to complete the work and to ensure that it is completed with a certain degree of secrecy. Halfway through the process, however, one of the miniaturists, Zarif (lit. Elegant) is brutally murdered and thrown down a well by an assailant made unknown to the reader throughout the work. While Zarif is still thought missing, Enişte Efendi's nephew Kara (lit. black/dark) returns home to Istanbul, at the behest of his uncle, at the end of a 12-year exile caused by his untimely confession of love for his cousin and Enişte Efendi's daughter Şeküre . Kara is included in the plan to prepare the book of European-style paintings, yet it quickly becomes obvious that he only accepts to endure being part of such a project that he feels so uncomfortable with due to his love for Şeküre. Şeküre, who had married a soldier with whom she has two children, Şevket and Orhan , while Kara was travelling in the East, has been awaiting the arrival of her husband for 4 years since he went missing while in a campaign on the eastern borders. In the time that his husband went missing, Şeküre was faced with more and more tasks being placed on her within her in-laws' house, along with sexual advances from her husband's younger brother, Hasan . Hasan himself has fallen madly in love with Şeküre, though she is both unsure as to whether or not she feels the same way, and is confused as to whether she should wait for her husband or look for a new man to marry. Her husband has not been officially recorded as dead, so Şeküre is, by law, still married to him. Her in-laws make this a point to try and keep her in the house, yet she manages to escape to her father's house after her father-in-law realises Hasan has been making drunken advances on her.

Within this confusion Kara, after years of travelling far away lands for his apparent love for Şeküre, convinces here, slowly, to accept him as her new husband. However, during their first meeting after 12 years, Zarif's murderer sneaks into Enişte Efendi's house looking for a final painting prepared for the book that Zarif told him was outright blasphemy, and confronts him with his intentions when discovered. He confesses his murder to Enişte Efendi, hoping for understanding, yet kills him after he realises that he will receive no help from him. When Şeküre returns home she finds her father dead on the floor and, concealing the obvious murder, pushes Kara to get her officially divorced so that they may marry and be safe from Hasan. This does not go down well with Hasan, who has been threatening to call upon the law to bring Şeküre back to her lawful husband's home, which happens to be Hasan's as well.

When Hasan threatens to report Kara to the authorities for murdering his uncle, Kara decides that, in the awkward situation they have found themselves, the only way out is to seek the help of the sultan who had called for the book in the first place. After confessing all he knows to the court Treasurer, Kara returns to partake in his uncle's funeral. Shortly, he is called back and asked to work together with the head of the miniaturists' workshop Üstat Osman Efendi , an old and skilled miniaturist. They then scour through various works in the Sultan's treasury trying to match up a small drawing of a horse found on Zarif's body with that of one of Osman's three other protégés , Leylek (Stork), Kelebek (Butterfly) and Zeytin (Olive). After hours of searching they conclude that the horse was in fact drawn by Zeytin, yet Osman, refusing to believe it was him, claims that it was most likely Leylek. Kara leaves him in the sultan's treasury to read himself blind, and sets off to find that Şeküre and the children are not home. When he hears that they have gone to Hasan's house, Kara collects a mob to take back his wife and bring her home. After convincing Şeküre to come back home, Kara and the mob run into a mob of the Erzurumlu hoca's flock, who oppose wine, coffee and all things European, tearing apart the local coffee house. Kara sends Şeküre to a relative's house and, seeing Kelebek, forces him to lead him to his house in an attempt to discover his uncle's murderer. When they reach Kelebek's home they fight but ultimately decide that they must work together to find the murderer. They visit Zeytin's house together and find that he is not at home, and so instead collect some of his paintings to take to Leylek, whose house they head to next. Leylek is able to convince them of his innocence as well, at which point they set out looking for Zeytin, whom they find in a dervish's lodge. After the four discuss the mystery and their past memories for a while, Leylek, Kelebek and Kara jump on Zeytin to get him to confess to his crime, which he does after Leylek blinds him with a needle Kara stole from the sultan's collection. As he is slowly on the verge of losing his sight, Zeytin confesses to his crimes. He shows the other three the final painting that so shocked Zarif: a portrait of the Sultan, done in European style. Zeytin then finds a way to take Kara's dagger, and ultimately stabs him in the shoulder and runs to try and board a ship headed for India, to work for the Mughal Emperor Akbar. However, when he decides to visit the miniature workshop on his way, he is confronted by Hasan who, mistaking him for a friend of Kara's, decapitates him.

Kara returns to Şeküre, now safe, and they spend the rest of their days together. Kara is still unhappy, yet Şeküre lives a happy life with her sons, tasking her son Orhan with putting into writing their extraordinary story.

Kara is one of the protagonists of the novel, a 36 year old man learned in the arts of miniature and calligraphy. Not having had a father of his own, Kara was raised by his uncle, named Enişte Efendi in the novel, and lived with him and his daughter Şeküre for most of his youth. It was in these years that he was trained by the master miniaturist Üstat Osman, along with four more major characters known by their nicknames Zarif, Leylek, Zeytin and Kelebek. While living in his uncle's house he falls in love with his cousin and when, at the age of 24, he confesses his unrequited love for his 12 year old cousin, he is forced by his uncle to leave Istanbul and search for a living elsewhere. He wanders the east living off of wages he makes preparing illustrated and gilded books for various lords and nobles throughout various countries, and suffers much pain and adversity during this time. When he returns to Istanbul he does so with one aim: marrying Şeküre.

Kara may be a representation of one of the traditional themes in Sufism and Sufi poetry of the wandering lover, searching and suffering for love far and wide. The lover, through their love of another, reflect the more divine, second kind of love in Sufism, which is love of God 2 . Thus, in much of Sufi love poetry, each verse holds double-meanings, where praise of God is praise of a lover, and vice versa. Kara reflects the particular idea present in the strands of Sufism that are most common throughout Turkish and Turkic societies that holds unrequited and unfulfilled love to be the truest form of love, as it reflects the divine love in its unattainable nature. In this tradition, suffering caused by love is a truer form of love 3 , and achieving love is seen less as the actualisation of the love and more as a corruption of it, where wandering, desolate and distant from one's lover, is closer to true love than being with one's lover, which draws nearer to carnal, earthly love.

Yet Kara is less of a one-dimensional stand-in for this notion than he is an exploration of its compatibility with real humans, for whom suffering and loneliness seem not to be end goals but rather pains that lead to a happy end. The emphasis of Kara's sexuality made apparent in his lack of restraint when meeting with Şeküre 4 , descriptions of his penis 5 and references to his masturbation 6 show the human side of this kind of lifestyle far from human love. In this way Kara shows how in the real world distance from a lover does not purify one's soul, not always at least, and rather may push one to further sexual frustration and unbridled earthly desire. Thus, Kara can be seen as a criticism of this kind of celibate and stoic theology.

However, the purity and constantly mentioned child-like nature of Kara 7 make him one of the few likeable, trustworthy characters in the book. Though he may not be the brightest, as is also repeated to no end by most of the other characters 8 , Kara is ultimately one of the few honest characters in the novel, dedicated to a cause that the reader can recognise as noble. In this way, Kara stands out as an extraordinary character, and one that the reader finds themselves rooting for. When examined this way, Kara is also an affirmation of some of the key ideas that lie behind the tradition of the suffering lover, or at least an affirmation of the qualities of those who tend to commit themselves to such ideals. As an idealist, then, Kara may be far from perfect, yet he is one of the few characters that the reader can trust the perspective of.

Şeküre is 24 years old during the events of the novel, and is the daughter of the wealthy Enişte Efendi. The most beautiful girl in perhaps all of Istanbul (according to her, of course), Şeküre is shown from the start to be a clever young woman determined to provide a safe, happy life for herself and her family, not afraid to use cunning to achieve her goals.

One of the issues Şeküre represents is the necessity in the Ottoman society of the time for a woman to be bound to a man, and her relative helplessness in the situation where she is deprived of a husband. The many difficulties she faces with Hasan in her in-laws' home 9 shows only the beginning of her worries, as she is forced to flee from the protection of one man to another and finds that she must betray even her emotions, which she herself is unaware of the true nature of 10 , in order to find safety for herself and her children. She shows the odd situation where a woman who wants what she wants, falls into in a system where women are forced to live under the protection of a man. Although not entirely ready to move on from the death of her husband, she finds herself having to make quick decisions on marriage and love, treating the two more as a strategic game to ensure security than a major life decision to achieve happiness with a loved one 11 . She is thus forced to move from man to man, not knowing whether she loves one or another, or any of them, simply to be safe. Although her actions may at first seem plotting and uncaring, this perspective shows that she is in fact the representation of the incompatibility of realistic love with such a patriarchal structure. Her uncertainty and realism are in stark contrast with Kara's single-minded idealism, in a way showing that though men may throw themselves into pain and suffering for love, women are in turn forced to be cold and calculating when it comes to marriage in such a society. Considering the fact that Pamuk initially envisioned My Name is Red being set in the present day 12 , these criticism hold true, though of course to a less vigorous degree, for modern Turkish society as well.

Zeytin is the main antagonist of the novel and one of the four protégés of Osman, the head of the miniature workshop. He is portrayed as a calm, quiet yet unsettlingly complex character, with even his master and lifelong adviser Osman being unsure of him and his character. Zeytin does not reveal his true nature in those chapters in which he addresses the reader under his miniaturist name, yet reveals a much darker and condescending tone in those parts where he speaks as the murderer. He is bound to the project given to Enişte Efendi and the three miniaturists, quite possibly more than any of the others, and looks down upon those who believe it to be blasphemy and insult to tradition. He is, however, greatly obsessed with whether or not he is a good artist with a style of his own, as is made obvious by his final conversation with Enişte Efendi 13 . Zeytin may indeed represent a darker version of Enişte Efendi, one who looks down upon the natural push-back against change and utilises cultural exchange to benefit himself, rather than to benefit the art itself.

Üstat Osman and Enişte Efendi

Üstat Osman and Enişte Efendi represent the two poles of cultural transformation and adherence to tradition, and their mutual dislike of one another, particularly stronger in Osman than in his counterpart, reflects the conflict that underlies the entire work. Üstat Osman is the master of the miniaturist workshop, and a strong proponent of the notion that workshops, not miniaturists, have style. His strict adherence to traditional values in the miniaturist art is reflected in his loss of control when let loose in the sultan's private collection, where he cannot help but marvel at all these great past works which he has committed so much of his life to preserving the memories and traditions of. Having found the past, however, Osman does not do his duty to help the present, being of little help to Kara in finding the killer, and even less help in trying to fix the problem to get the workshop back on its feet. Enişte Efendi, on the other hand, is a wealthy acquaintance of the sultan, who is tasked with finding the artists and overseeing the work done for a book of Western-style paintings to be sent to the Venetian doge of the time. He is idealistically bound to the project, throwing himself at the opportunity to blend two cultures and ultimately giving his life for it. Though the conflict is a central part of the work for the reader to ponder, Enişte Efendi's last chapter where his hopes for the morality of his work are confirmed by god shows that Pamuk takes his side rather than Osman's.

Kelebek and Leylek

The two other protégés of Osman, Leylek and Kelebek are both noted for their narcissism, though they are both significantly different in their sources of self-confidence. Kelebek is a light hearted character with an unshakable feeling of inferiority, described as a miniaturist whose main aim is not to make great art, but to make art people will love. Distinguished by his profound understanding and liberal use of colours, Kelebek sees life as something to be enjoyed, and tries to transmit this into his paintings. Leylek, on the other hand, is painted as an elitist, snooty miniaturist confident in his ability as a miniaturist and his position as future master of the workshop.

Cultural Exchange and Politics

Cultural exchange and interaction is the central theme of My Name is Red, a work which comments on the very nature of the process that brings itself into existence. The clash of hard-headed tradition and profit-seeking, idealistic cultural exchange and transformation runs through the story and through the interactions of various characters such as Üstat Osman and Enişte Efendi, who seem to represent two polar opposite forces pulling in either direction, trying their best to influence the terms of interaction between Ottoman and Venetian/Frankish art to fit their own views on art and excellence in art.

The period covered by the novel lands right at the dawn of the stagnation of the Ottoman Empire, with the recent death of Suleiman the Magnificent (Kanuni Sultan Süleyman). This presents a turning point in history from the point of view of the Ottoman Empire and those who carry its legacy, as it spells out the beginning of the end of Ottoman supremacy, and the rise of Western Europe as a dominant world power. The desire of the Ottoman Sultan to replicate the style of Venetians in order to secure their favour is a tell-tale sign of this shift in power, with the Ottomans feeling the need to take such measures to court allies within Europe.

The interaction also is a reflection of the Ottoman Empire's constant interactions with many a European nation too, however. Contrary to conceptions of ever-warring East and West, the Ottoman Empire shared a long history of diplomacy and interactions with various European nations, though of course in some cases it may have been less amicable than those relations among European nations themselves.

In addition to this, it is important to note the sheer degree of cultural exchange already present within the miniature art even before the incidents that led to the events of the novel. Mongolian, Chinese, Afghan, Persian, Indian and other cultures are all combined among different schools of style and form to create a complex and interwoven system of historically deep cultural exchange and evolution. The emphasis on this in the novel hints at the notion of the natural quality of the interaction with Europe.

About the Author: Orhan Pamuk

Ferit Orhan Pamuk is a Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist acclaimed for his avant garde style and masterful exploration of the conflicts and interactions between east and west 14 , which meet in his home town of Istanbul, a city straddling two continents. Pamuk was born here in the more upper-class neighbourhood of Nisantasi in 1952, where he spent most of his childhood 15 . He went to school in Robert College, an American high school set up during the reign of the Ottoman Empire in 1863 16 by American philanthropist and missionary Cyrus Hamlin (though the school itself is strictly secular in its education) 17 . From here Pamuk followed his passion and lifelong ambition to become a painter and an architect, and went on to study architecture at Istanbul Technical University, one of Turkey's most prestigious universities. After three years, however, he gave up on this aspiration and decided to pursue a degree in journalism from Istanbul University. He began his illustrious career as a novelist in 1974, completing his first work originally titled Darkness and Light in 1979 14 , for which he received the Milliyet Novel Competition. After republishing it under the name Cevdet Bey and His Sons in 1982 15 , Pamuk was awarded with the prestigious Orhan Kemal Novel Award in 1983 for this first novel.

Pamuk's works continued to gather acclaim from both within Turkey and from the rest of the world. The French translation of his work The Silent House , which had already won him the Turkish Madarali Novel Award in 1984, was awarded the Prix de la Découverte Européenne in 1990. The White Castle , which he published in 1985, was awarded the Independent Award for Foreign Fiction in the USA 14 . In 2006, Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, being described as the author "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures" 18 .

Despite this widespread international success, however, Pamuk has been a controversial figure back home in Turkey, both for his literature and for his political and historic views. In an interview with a Swiss magazine in 2005 19 , he openly stated his belief that the deaths of Armenians in the East of the Ottoman Empire during World War I were part of a systematic programme of mass slaughters that could be categorised as genocide, going counter to the Turkish government's policy of denying the genocidal nature of these events 20 . The statement proved costly for Pamuk, who found himself on trial for insulting "Turkishness" and forced to flee the country 21 . Widespread international ire over the charges ultimately led to the charges against him being dropped by the Turkish government 22 . He has also been criticised for praising the incumbent Justice and Development Party 23 (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP) , and then turning on them after they drew widespread international ire due to the Gezi Park protests of 2013 and the harsh government reaction to them 24 . This change in tone has made him an enemy of the AKP as well, with pro-government media sources labelling him as a "Western stooge" 25 .

Pamuk has also been controversial for his literature and marketing techniques as well as his political views. Author Demirtas Ceyhun claimed in 2006 that Pamuk's Nobel Prize was not a well-earned award but rather "a fee paid to Pamuk" as part of the West's postmodern cultural attack on the rest of the world 26 . The comment was targeting Pamuk's perceived orientation towards foreign readers, of whom the majority and most significant would be Western, as opposed to Turkish readers, thus criticising Pamuk for following what Ceyhun views as the forced retardation of literature under the guise of postmodernist "traditionalism". Acclaimed poet and author Ataol Behramoglu criticised Pamuk in a 2012 column in Turkish newspaper Cumhiriyet, claiming that despite his hope to explore the thoughts and works of Pamuk, his only source has been loose translations of his interactions with the foreign press 27 . Behramoglu rejected Pamuk's explanations of parts of Turkish history to foreign press as "not holding up to simple scrutiny", accusing him of having the same desire as leader of the AKP Recep Tayyip Erdogan for Turkey to regress rather than progress.

Orhan Pamuk ( Link )

Orhan Pamuk's novel constantly utilises elements of metafiction, with characters not only speaking directly to the reader in their chapters but also referring to chapters of other characters as parts of a literary work rather than as separate perspecives of people within the framework of a story, and even comment on thoughts, events and perspectives within other chapters that they themselves would have no knowledge of. Pamuk also blends various literary and artistic traditions in creating the novel, which utilises traditional Ottoman methods of storytelling and performance art both directly embedded within the story and through transitions between chapters that are reminiscent of the same sort of tradition that contains the famous Thousand and One Nights .

Cultural interaction in style

The plot of My Name is Red examines the interaction of two different artistic traditions within an artistic community, displaying the turmoil caused by the inner conflict of those wishing to further the interaction and those who see it as an insult to their own ways and traditions. The theme of cultural interaction is particularly significant for Pamuk and the book as a whole outside of the fictional significance, as My Name is Red is a prime example of the successful result of the kinds of cultural interactions which cause so much distress to the characters in the novel. Pamuk adds into the typically Western format of the novel examinations of Sufi philosophy, traditional Ottoman storytelling techniques and interwoven stories that have led to the novel being likened to The Thousand and One Nights 28 . The three stories each told by Zeytin, Leylek and Kelebek are perfect examples of the continuation of the tradition of stories within stories, and the insertion of short chapters told from the viewpoints of paintings represent the storytelling style of the meddah from Ottoman tradition. The addition of the detective-story shows a more solid adoption of a certain theme from non-local sources, and so represents considerable additions into the new tradition of Turkish literature. Pamuk thus successfully blends these traditions of literature within this single work, and in doing so is subject himself to the lessons of the work.

It is important, however, to note that although the dichotomy of East-West is quite easy to set up in such a situation, background on both Pamuk and the traditions he blends in My Name is Red provides valuable insight into the implications of such comments. The novel, though holding a longer tradition within the West, has enjoyed more than a century of use within Turkish literature, the first Turkish novel being written in 1872 29 (though there is discussion as to whether the first novel was in fact one written by an Armenian author in the Armenian script but in the Turkish language, written in 1851 30 ). Pamuk himself is from a westernised Turkish family, living on the European side of Istanbul, a city that straddles two continents and holds great significance in the histories of nations that would fall under the category of East and West. These complications of the more basic idea of the interaction of two traditions adds depth to the novel as an artefact as well as a work of literature. The fact that the plot addresses the very complications that make the novel so interesting adds an extra layer of self-awareness to the work.

Stories Within Stories

My Name is Red incorporates within its plot a number of various different stories from the traditional canon of Persian and Persianate literature, not only referencing them within the work but also structuring key events around these works, such as Kara's declaration of love to Şeküre. The novel examines these individual stories in the framework of its own plot, and to a certain extent recreates a similar kind of storyline in the turbulent relationship of Kara and Şeküre. Of the long tradition of Persian and Turkish tragic love stories, the novel returns most to that of Khosrow and Shirin (Hüsrev and Şirin), a connection that begins with Kara's declaration of love to Şeküre through his gifting her a picture of himself, in recreation of Shirin's falling in love with Khosrow after seeing a painting of him 31 . Kara continuously returns to the story and his touching gesture, which reveals particular overlap with the fate of their love as neither lead to a happy ending, but whereas that of the legendary Shirin and Khosrow ends in dramatic tragedy for both, the story of Kara and Şeküre is concluded with a sad and underwhelming ending of dissatisfaction for Kara, yet a curiously content Şeküre 32 .

The meddah tradition

The meddah in Ottoman tradition is a storyteller who relies on primarily descriptive language, facial expressions and constant interaction with the audience to deliver a story 33 . Meddahs most commonly would practice their trade in coffee houses and other more public spaces, and were thus farther from the nobility and the court of Ottoman life than other forms of art such as miniatures, classical poetry including ghazals and mesnevis, and classical Turkish music. The usage of the meddahs and the traditions that follow them, a markedly less noble and 'high-culture' tradition than that of the miniature, may show that Pamuk is indeed trying to include not only the noble and wealthy histories of Turkish art and literature, but also to incorporate some more folkish elements to have a more holistic interaction with other traditions on every level of society.

In making the meddahs speak through inanimate objects and drawings, Pamuk may also be utilising metafiction to reflect his personal role in the creation of the work, as a novelist who tells tales through inanimate letters. He in fact addresses this in the first chapter with the meddah, where he scorns the reader for finding a talking dog absurd while having no qualms about reading stories from the dead 34 .This kind of back and forth metafiction allows Pamuk to constantly remind the readers of the fictional nature of the work, and the implications of the themes of the novel on the book as an artefact.

http://www.orhanpamuk.net/book.aspx?id=62&lng=eng ↩
http://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/view/3691/3490 ↩
http://tr.fgulen.com/content/view/6196/3/ ↩
My Name is Red p. 172 ↩
My Name is Red p. 162, p.172, p. ↩
My Name is Red p. 65 ↩
My Name is Red p. 161 ↩
My Name is Red p. 82, 118, 412 ↩
My Name is Red, p.57 ↩
My Name is Red, p.246 ↩
My Name is Red, p.207 ↩
David Damrosch interview with Orhan Pamuk, http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k104639&pageid=icb.page724093&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent1586654&view=watch.do&viewParam_entry=144879&state=maximize#a_icb_pagecontent1586654 ↩
My Name is Red, p.195 ↩
http://www.radikal.com.tr/hayat/orhan_pamuk_kimdir___orhan_pamuk_hayati_ve_kitaplari-1177750 ↩ ↩ ↩
http://www.orhanpamuk.com/ ↩ ↩
http://webportal.robcol.k12.tr/About-RC/HistoryOfRc/Pages/default.aspx ↩
http://www.bugun.com.tr/sanat/robert-koleji-nasil-kuruldu-haberi/219899 ↩
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/ ↩
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/international/europe/16turkey.html ↩
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/the-events-of-1915-and-the-turkish-armenian-controversy-over-history_-an-overview.en.mfa ↩
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/23/books.turkey ↩
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/23/voicesofprotest.books ↩
http://www.milliyet.com.tr/orhan-pamuk-tan-ak-parti-ye-ovgu/siyaset/siyasetdetay/14.05.2012/1540162/default.htm ↩
http://www.radikal.com.tr/turkiye/orhan_pamuktan_gezi_yorumu-1144117 ↩
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/12/pamuk-shafak-turkish-press-campaign ↩
http://www.zaman.com.tr/gundem_aydinlarin-bakisi-nobel-pamuka-verilmis-bir-ucret_440480.html ↩
http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/koseyazisi/366372/Orhan_Pamuk_ve_Tayyip_Erdogan__.html ↩
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/books/review/iyer.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 ↩
http://mebk12.meb.gov.tr/meb_iys_dosyalar/06/13/962846/dosyalar/2013_02/22041736_trkedebiyatndalkler.pdf ↩
Tietze, Andreas, and Hovsep Vardanean. Aḳabi Hikyayesi: Ilk Türkçe Roman, 1851. İstanbul: Eren Yayıncılık Ve Kitapçılık, 1991. Print. ↩
My Name is Red, p. 45 ↩
My Name is Red, p. 467 ↩
http://aregem.kulturturizm.gov.tr/TR,12745/meddah.html ↩
My Name is Red, p. 18 ↩
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The Story of O.J. Simpson’s Controversial Book, If I Did It , And Why It Was Canceled And Later Released

Simpson’s hypothetical account of how he would have killed his ex-wife and her friend was published by one of the victim’s family in 2007

Ethan Miller/Getty; Beaufort Books

O.J. Simpson died on April 10 from cancer. He was 76. The contentious figure, who was an actor, broadcaster and Hall of Fame football player, is now arguably best-known for his arrest, trial and acquittal for the 1994 murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. Following an hours-long televised police chase — which garnered 95 million viewers — Simpson's trial lasted for months before jurors declared him not guilty of the killings in 1995. In 2007, Simpson was arrested on non-related felony charges for armed robbery and kidnapping . At that point, he was convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison following a 2008 trial, and was released in Oct. 2017 after serving nearly nine years.

Simpson’s alleged involvement with Brown and Goldman’s murders was the subject of a highly controversial book. If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer , Simpson’s hypothetical account of how he would have murdered Brown and Goldman, had a rocky road to its eventual 2007 publication.

Beaufort Books

Prior to If I Did It , Simpson published I Want to Tell You: My Response to Your Letters, Your Messages, Your Questions in 1995, while he waited to appear before the jury for his hearing. Per the book’s description , I Want to Tell You was intended to be “an emotional and factual self-portrait of O. J.'s mind at this critical time,” and included letters that Simpson had received since his incarceration.

In 2006, publisher Judith Regan announced that she would publish a book by O.J. Simpson through ReganBooks, a former imprint of HarperCollins. Regan claimed that Simpson’s legal team contacted her in a 2006 interview, which became public in 2018. “I received a phone call from an attorney who said that O.J. was ready to confess,” Regan said in the interview. “And actually, I thought it was some kind of a scam and didn’t believe him, and I thought, ‘This guy’s a lunatic,’ but I took his number and said I’d call him back.”

Isaac Brekken-Pool/Getty

“The next day, I called him back and he said he was willing to do it, and the only condition that he had was that he didn’t want to call the book I Did It," Regan claimed. “He wanted to put an ‘if’ in front of it, so he would have deniability with his children . He couldn’t face his children and he couldn’t tell them that he had done it. That was the way it was portrayed to me. That was his only condition.” The book sold for a reported $3.5 million and was set to publish on Nov. 30, 2006. However, outrage from both the public and the victims' families led to the book’s publication being canceled. Regan was also fired by HarperCollins on the heels of the controversy.

“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” Rupert Murdoch, then-News Corp. chairman, said in 2006. “We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”

In the wake of his 1995 acquittal, Simpson was sued by both the Brown and Goldman families in civil court. The court ruled in the families' favor in 1997, and awarded them a $33.5 million liability judgment, though Simpson only paid a fraction of the initial amount.

Following the cancellation of the book, however, a battle for the rights to If I Did It ensued. Lorraine Brooke Associates, a company run by Simpson’s daughter, Arnelle, with the Simpson children as the main shareholders, had negotiated the original book deal with HarperCollins. However, after a California judge ordered the rights sold to benefit the Goldman family, Lorraine Brooke Associates filed for bankruptcy.

In 2007, rights were awarded to the Goldman family, CBS reported at the time , to satisfy a $38 million wrongful death judgment against Simpson. The judge presiding over that case found that Lorraine Brooke Associates was founded in an attempt to hide O.J. Simpson's involvement with the book, which led them to award the rights to the Goldmans, CBS reported.

Jason Bean-Pool/Getty

The Browns, who won a $24 million wrongful death case against Simpson, were awarded a 10% cut of the book’s first gross proceeds. The Goldmans were tasked with bearing the burden of finding the book a publisher, as well as its marketing efforts.

With the rights secured, the Goldman family published a revised edition of If I Did It in 2007. The new book included Simpson’s original text, as well as additional commentary from the Goldman family, the book’s original ghostwriter Pablo Fenjves and journalist Dominick Dunne. The new edition also covered the bankruptcy case and the court proceedings that led to Simpson’s conviction, per the book's description.

"After 13 years of trying to get some justice, today is probably the first time we had any sense of seeing light at the end of the tunnel," Goldman’s father, Fred, said at the hearing after the book rights were awarded. "It's gratifying to see."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.

According to Amazon , all royalties from the book's sales are currently awarded to the Goldman family.

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My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of sixteenth-century Istanbul, from one of the most prominent contemporary Turkish writers. The Sultan has commissioned a cadre of the most acclaimed artists in the land to create a great book celebrating ...
Review: My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Firstly, My Name is Red is anintriguing murder-mystery that plays with the reader, challenging them to identify the murderer before they reach the end. There are some clues as to the identity of the murderer scattered about in the narrative as we read about secrets that harbour the four great miniaturists - "Stork", "Olive ...
MY NAME IS RED
Acclaimed Turkish writer Pamuk (The New Life, 1997, etc.) investigates two brutal murders—and offers a whimsical but provocative exploration of the nature of art in an Islamic society.My Name is Red speaks in many voices, some more predominant than others. A dog, a tree, and a horse as well as Death, Satan, and a corpse all make eloquent contributions to the narrative, but center stage are ...
My Name Is Red
My Name Is Red (Turkish: Benim Adım Kırmızı) is a 1998 Turkish novel by writer Orhan Pamuk translated into English by Erdağ Göknar in 2001. The novel, concerning miniaturists in the Ottoman Empire of 1591, established Pamuk's international reputation and contributed to his reception of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006.. The book has been translated into more than 60 languages since ...
Book Review: My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
My Name is Red reads like a philosophical mystery, except it's only about art philosophy. It's a story about a murder among a group of miniaturists (which are basically artists), and it is set in the Ottoman Empire. The book itself was originally written in Turkish. The idea is that they are working on book of illustrations that reflects a ...
Review: My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Part fantasy and part philosophical puzzle, My Name Is Red is a kaleidoscope journey into the intersection of art, religion, love, sex, and power. There are scenes in this book that don't require outside knowledge to appreciate. The story is told from a rotating set of perspectives that includes a corpse, dog, gold coin, and various ...
Amazon.com: Customer reviews: My Name Is Red: A Novel
A beautiful tale, told in a captivating way and wrapped around a good old-fashioned murder mystery, "My Name is Red" is easy to rate as a 5-star book. The many layers and textures of this book captivate the reader's senses, and the complex themes and messages engage the mind. Pamuk truly has delivered a delightful reading experience.
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
My Name Is Red book. Read 4,744 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and...
My Name Is Red
The Nobel Prize winner and one of today's most prominent contemporary Turkish writers delivers a novel that is a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, a brilliant symposium on the power of art, and a "modern classic … rich and essential" (Los Angeles Times Book Review)—set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of sixteenth-century Istanbul.The Sultan has commissioned a ...
Analysis of Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red
Analysis of Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on August 2, 2023. My Name Is Red, the recipient of the International Impac Dublin Literary Award in 2003, is perhaps the most celebrated book by the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (1952- ), who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2006.The novel, which is superficially a murder mystery, details the artistic and philosophical ...
Book Reviews: My Name Is Red, by Orhan Pamuk and Erdag ...
My Name Is Red. Orhan Pamuk and Erdag Gokna | 3.93 | 44,378 ratings and reviews. Ranked #2 in Turkey, Ranked #3 in Turkish — see more rankings. At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of ...
My Name Is Red
About My Name Is Red. The Nobel Prize winner and one of today's most prominent contemporary Turkish writers delivers a novel that is a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, a brilliant symposium on the power of art, and a "modern classic … rich and essential" (Los Angeles Times Book Review)—set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of sixteenth-century Istanbul.
Book Marks reviews of My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, trans. by Erda
My Name Is Red is not just a novel of ideas. Eastern or Western, good or bad, ideas precipitate once they sink to human level, unleashing passions and violence. Red is chockful of sublimity and sin. The story is told by each of a dozen characters, and now and then by a dog, a tree, a gold coin, several querulous corpses and the color crimson ('My Name Is Red').
My Name is Red
The complete review 's Review : My Name is Red is a novel presented in many voices and from many perspectives. The short chapters are narrated by more than a dozen different characters; most are human, but they also include a dog, a horse, a tree, and a coin. The novel begins dramatically: the first voice is that of a dead person, the just ...
Heresies of the Paintbrush
MY NAME IS RED. By Orhan Pamuk. Translated by Erdag M. Goknor. 417 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $25.95. Time's deletions, like a computer's, are not really deleted. A technician can restore what ...
My Name is Red (Orhan Pamuk)
As a mystery and a reworked folktale, My Name is Red has some surprising twists and turns, powering a readily engaging plot; as a historical novel, its setting in late sixteenth century Istanbul is convincingly detailed; and as a novel it offers some memorable characters and complex relationships. But what is most notable about My Name is Red ...
MY NAME IS RED
Acclaimed Turkish writer Pamuk (The New Life, 1997, etc.) investigates two brutal murders—and offers a whimsical but provocative exploration of the nature of art in an Islamic society.My Name is Red speaks in many voices, some more predominant than others. A dog, a tree, and a horse as well as Death, Satan, and a corpse all make eloquent contributions to the narrative, but center stage are ...
My Name Is Red: Orhan Pamuk, Erdag Göknar: 9780307593924: Amazon.com: Books
My Name Is Red. Hardcover - November 2, 2010. by Orhan Pamuk (Author), Erdag Göknar (Translator) 4.2 1,677 ratings. See all formats and editions. One of the Nobel Prize winner's best-loved novels, in a special edition featuring an introduction by the author and a chronology of Islamic and Western art history that provides additional ...
My Name is Red Study Guide
At the time My Name is Red takes place in 1591, the leader of the Ottoman Empire was Sultan Murat III, who is a character in the novel. Murat was a particularly enthusiastic patron of miniature painting, and he commissioned several books to be painted by painters employed by the Ottoman court. When Murat died in 1595, he was succeeded by his ...
MY NAME IS RED by Orhan Pamuk ★★★★
Translated from Turkish, My Name is Red doesn't always have the same kind of unity and coherence that a novel originally written in English might have. Moreover, Pamuk has very little time for dialogue. Most of the book is either description or introspection from the narrator to the reader. My Name is Red reminds me of a stage play.
My Name Is Red
My Name Is Red. Hardcover - Deckle Edge, August 28, 2001. From one of the most important and acclaimed writers at work today, a thrilling new novel—part murder mystery, part love story—set amid the perils of religious repression in sixteenth-century Istanbul. When the Sultan commissions a great book to celebrate his royal self and his ...
My Name is Red
'My Name is Red' (Turkish: Benim Adım Kırmızı) is a 1998 historical novel written by Turkish novelist and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. The work, which Pamuk describes as his "most colorful and optimistic novel" 1, is set in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul and spans nine winter days in the year 1591.The work addresses the clash between cultural conservatism and reform within a ...
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk Book Review
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk is a kaleidoscopic journey to the intersection of #art, religion, #love, sex and #power. This not your ordinary book review, be...
The Story of O.J. Simpson's Book, 'If I Did It,' And Why It Was
The book sold for a reported $3.5 million and was set to publish on Nov. 30, 2006. However, outrage from both the public and the victims' families led to the book's publication being canceled.

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Üstat Osman and Enişte Efendi

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The Story of O.J. Simpson’s Controversial Book, If I Did It , And Why It Was Canceled And Later Released

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