Snow - Hardcover

Pamuk, Orhan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 057121830X ISBN 13: 9780571218301

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2004

Synopsis

The year is 1992. Ka, a poet and political exile, returns to Turkey as a journalist, assigned to write an investigative piece about troubling events in the small and mysterious city of Kars near the Armenian border.

The snow is falling fast as Ka arrives, and soon all roads are closed. He discovers a city plagued by a 'suicide epidemic' amongst young women, and where the Islamists are poised to win the municipal elections. If he wants to understand what's happened to this part of the world during his absence, this is the place to begin.

But the rogue coup that unfolds before his eyes over the next three days tells him far more than he wants to know. He sees a city wasting away under the shadow of Europe, consumed by religious and political conspiracies, and haunted by the silences of its own history.

Snow angered Islamists and westernised Turks alike when it came out in early 2002 - and promptly sold more than 100,000 copies. A spectacular tour de force, it evokes the spiritual fragility of the non-western world, its ambivalence about the godless West, and its fury.

About this title

Review:

"Richly detailed . . . A thrilling plot ingeniously shaped . . . Vividly embodies and painstakingly explores the collision of Western values with Islamic fundamentalism . . . An astonishingly complex, disturbing view of a world we owe it to ourselves to better understand." --"Kirkus Reviews From the British reviews of "Snow "A novel of profound relevance to the present moment. The debate between the forces of secularism and those of religious fanaticism is conducted with subtle, painful insight into the human weakness that can underlie both impulses." --Bel Mooney, "The Times "'How much can we ever know about love and pain in another's heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?' Such questions haunt the poet Ka . . . [in] this novel, as much about love as it is about politics." --Sarah Emily Miano, "The Observer "Profound and frequently brilliant . . . Pamuk shows decisively that the European novel remains a form, and a freedom, for which we have reason to be thankful . . . "Snow illuminate[s] the confrontation between secular and extremist Islamic worlds better than any work of nonfiction I can think of." --Julian Evans, "New Statesman "Brilliant . . . Hilarious . . . A gripping political thriller." --John de Falbe, "Spectator "A melancholy farce full of rabbit-out-of-a-hat plot twists that, despite its locale, looks uncannily like the magic lantern show of misfire, denial, and pratfall that appears daily in our newspapers . . . Pamuk gives convincing proof that the solitary artist is a better bellwether than any televised think-tanker."--Stephen O'Shea, "Independent on Sunday "A devastating parable of political extremism." --Angel Gurria-Quintana, "Financial Times "Pamuk uses his powers to show us the critical dilemmas of modern Turkey. How European a country is it? How can it respond to fundamentalist Islam? And how can an artist deal with these issues? . . . He is the sort of writer for whom the Nobel Prize was invented." --Tom Payne, "Daily Telegraph

Book Description:

Part political thriller, part absurdist farce, part love story, Orhan Pamuk's second novel to appear in an Everyman edition has a contemporary setting - a remote Turkish city where Eastern and Western values overlap and collide.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 057121830X
• ISBN 13: 9780571218301
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448