Orhan Pamuk

Every summer, three siblings travel to a coastal town near Istanbul to visit their elderly grandmother, Fatma, who lives in a house filled with memories of a vanished world. Their grandfather, a doctor and idealist, built the house decades earlier, but his ambitions and radical ideas left painful marks on the family. During their visit, the siblings reveal contrasting visions of Turkey’s future. Faruk, a disillusioned historian, struggles with his sense of purpose; Nilgün, a politically engaged young woman, dreams of a more egalitarian society; and Metin longs for wealth and the opportunities he associates with the West. Meanwhile, Fatma’s memories return to a past shaped by resentment, regret, and family secrets. Set against the political polarisation of late-1970s Turkey, Silent House examines the tensions between generations, social classes, and competing ideologies. Through the voices of its deeply different characters, Pamuk reveals how a family’s private conflicts can mirror the divisions of an entire nation.

In 1901, a deadly plague reaches Mingheria, a fictional island in the eastern Mediterranean and the twenty-ninth province of the declining Ottoman Empire. Home to both Muslim and Greek Orthodox communities, the island is already divided by religious tensions and political rivalries. As the epidemic spreads, the Ottoman authorities send experts to impose quarantine measures, but suspicion, resistance, and competing loyalties threaten to undermine every attempt to contain the disease. When a mysterious murder complicates the crisis, the island descends into a struggle involving religious leaders, government officials, scientists, and ordinary people desperate to survive. As the Ottoman administration loses control, the epidemic becomes a catalyst for rebellion and the emergence of a new national identity. Blending historical epic, detective story, and political satire, Nights of Plague explores how fear reshapes societies and how crises expose the fragility of authority. Through an imagined history of an Ottoman island, Pamuk examines nationalism, religious conflict, scientific reasoning, and the human tendency to choose ideology over evidence.