Orhan Pamuk

In the seventeenth century, a young Italian scholar travelling from Venice is captured by pirates and taken to Constantinople, where he becomes a slave. His new master, Hoja, is an Ottoman scholar fascinated by Western science and technology. But their relationship becomes increasingly strange when they discover that they look almost exactly alike. As the Italian teaches Hoja everything he knows about astronomy, medicine, and engineering, their intellectual partnership develops into a psychological struggle. Each man becomes obsessed with understanding the other, probing his memories, fears, and deepest secrets. Gradually, the boundaries between master and slave begin to blur, raising an unsettling question: if two people know everything about each other, can they exchange identities? Set against the grandeur and brutality of the Ottoman Empire, The White Castle is a philosophical tale about selfhood, cultural differences, and the fragile boundaries separating East from West.

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.