The Turkish Modernization in Pamuk’s Novel The Black Book

Abstract

Orhan Pamuk has written many novels and most of his novels deal with the concept of East-West ideologies and his observation on his own native city Istanbul and the impact of West in Turkey.  He is a successful novelist, screenwriter, painter and professor of comparative literature and writing at Columbia University,U.S. This article postulates   the traditional Turkey into the modernized Turkey by exploring the Turkishness in his novel The Black Book (Kara Kitap). This is pamuk’s fourth novel which is a murder mystery. The question of identity is the theme of this novel. It was published in Turkish in 1990 translated into English by Guneli Gun and later it was again translated into English by Maureen Freely in 1994. This novel portrays   Turkey’s Ottoman past and contemporary Istanbul.