Şemsa Gezgin Boeken

From Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, comes the best of twenty years work. A collection of immediate relevance and timeless value, Other Colours ranges from lyrical autobiography to criticism of literature and culture, from humour to political analysis, from delicate evocations of his friendship with his daughter Ruya to provocative discussions of Eastern and Western art. Reflections on Pamuk s first passport, his first trip to Europe, his father s death, his recent court case, and the Istanbul earthquake share space with pieces on writers as various as Laurence Sterne, Dostoyevsky, Kundera, Rushdie, and Patricia Highsmith. There are additional sections on Istanbul, New York where Pamuk lived for two years and on the writing of each of his novels. Interspersed among these are photographs, paintings, some of Pamuk s own black and white drawings, as well as Looking Out the Window , a short story originally published in Granta. My Father s Suitcase, Pamuk s 2006 Nobel Lecture, a brilliant illumination of what it means to be a writer, completes the selection from the figure who is now without doubt one of international literature s most eminent and popular figures.

Istanbul is a shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world's great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in 2006, was born in Istanbul, in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy-or hüzün- that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost Ottoman Empire. As he companionably guides us across the Bosphorus, through Istanbul's historical monuments and lost paradises, its dilapidated Ottoman villas, back streets and waterways, he also introduces us to the city's writers, artists and murderers. Like the Dublin of Joyce and Jan Morris' Venice, Pamuk's Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.

De dichter Ka, die twaalf jaar als banneling in Duitsland heeft gewoond, keert terug naar Turkije. Hij raakt verzeild in het noordoosten, waar de winters ijzig koud zijn. In de grensstad Kars doet hij onderzoek naar de lokale verkiezingen, en ook over de golf van zelfmoorden die zich voordoet onder vrome jonge meisjes is hij van plan een reportage te schrijven.In de aanhoudende sneeuw doorkruist Ka de stad - die inmiddels door de zware sneeuwval voor enige dagen van de buitenwereld is afgeslote...