After Years Of Lonely Political Exile, Turkish Poet Ka Returns To Istanbul To Attend His Mother's Funeral And Learns About A Series Of Suicides Among Pious Girls Forbidden To Wear Headscarves. The Journey To Kars -- The Outlying Districts -- Poverty And History -- Ka Meets Ipek In The New Life Pastry Shop -- The First And Last Conversation Between The Murderer And His Victim -- Love, Religion, And Poetry: Muhtar's Sad Story -- At Party Headquarters, Police Headquarters, And Once Again In The Streets -- Blue And Rüstem -- A Nonbeliever Who Does Not Want To Kill Himself -- Snow And Happiness -- Ka With Sheikh Efendi -- The Sad Story Of Necip And Hicran -- A Walk Through The Snow With Kadife -- The Dinner Conversation Turns To Love, Head Scarves, And Suicide -- At The National Theater -- Necip Describes His Landscape And Ka Recites His Poem -- A Play About A Girl Who Burns Her Head Scarf -- A Revolution Onstage -- The Night Of The Revolution -- While Ka Slept And When He Woke The Next Morning -- Ka In The Cold Rooms Of Terror -- Sunay Zaim's Military And Theatrical Careers -- With Sunay At Military Headquarters -- The Six-sided Snowflake -- Ka With Kadife In The Hotel Room -- Blue's Statement To The West -- Ka Urges Turgut Bey To Sign The Statement -- Ka With Ipek In The Hotel Room -- In Frankfurt -- A Short Spell Of Happiness -- The Secret Meeting At The Hotel Asia -- On Love, Insignificance, And Blue's Disappearance -- The Fear Of Being Shot -- The Mediator -- Ka With Blue In His Cell -- Bargaining In Which Life Vies With Theater, And Art With Politics -- Preparations For The Play To End All Plays -- An Enforced Visit -- Ka And Ipek Meet At The Hotel -- The First Half Of The Chapter -- The Missing Green Notebook -- From Ipek's Point Of View -- The Final Act -- Four Years Later, In Kars. Orhan Pamuk ; Translated From The Turkish By Maureen Freely. Originally Published In Turkey As Kar By İletiṣim, Istanbul, In 2002. -- T.p. Verso. This Is A Borzoi Book. -- T.p. Verso. Translated From The Turkish.

Kar

Pamuk, Orhan, 1952-; Freely, Maureen, 1952-

Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

Random House, Incorporated

Random House AudioBooks

Book club kit, 1st American ed, New York, 2004

United States, United States of America

1st American ed, New York, ©2006

2005-03

[curator]associate-jye-afamasaga@archive.org[/curator][date]20211221205237[/date][state]approved[/state][comment]Fixed by Innodata[/comment]

"Following years of lonely political exile in Western Europe, Ka, a middle-aged poet, returns to Istanbul to attend his mother's funeral. Only partly recognizing this place of his cultured, middle-class youth, he is even more disoriented by news of strange events in the wider country: a wave of suicides among girls forbidden to wear their head scarves at school. An apparent thaw of his writer's curiosity - a frozen sea these many years - leads him to Kars, a far-off town near the Russian border and the epicenter of the suicides." "No sooner has he arrived, however, than we discover that Ka's motivations are not purely journalistic; for in Kars, once a province of Ottoman and then Russian glory, now a cultural gray-zone of poverty and paralysis, there is also Ipek, a radiant friend of Ka's youth, lately divorced, whom he has never forgotten. As a snowstorm, the fiercest in memory, descends on the town and seals it off from the modern, westernized world that has always been Ka's frame of reference, he finds himself drawn in unexpected directions: not only headlong toward the unknowable Ipek and the desperate hope for love - or at least a wife - that she embodies, but also into the maelstrom of a military coup staged to restrain the local Islamist radicals, and even toward God, whose existence Ka has never before allowed himself to contemplate. In this surreal confluence of emotion and spectacle, Ka begins to tap his dormant creative powers, producing poem after poem in untimely, irresistible bursts of inspiration. But not until the snows have melted and the political violence has run its bloody course will Ka discover the fate of his bid to seize a last chance for happiness."--BOOK JACKET.

425 pages ; 25 cm
Originally published in Turkey as Kar by Iletisim, Istanbul, 2002
The journey to Kars -- The outlying districts -- Poverty and history -- Ka meets Ipek in the New Life Pastry Shop -- The first and last conversation between the murderer and his victim -- Love, religion, and poetry: Muhtar's sad story -- At party headquarters, police headquarters, and once again in the streets -- Blue and rustem -- A nonbeliever who does not want to kill himself -- Snow and happiness -- Ka with Sheikh Efendi -- The sad story of Necip and Hicran -- A walk through the snow with Kadife -- The dinner conversation turns to love, head scarves, and suicide -- At the National Theater -- Necip describes his landscape and Ka recites his poem -- A play about a girl who burns her head scarf -- A revolution onstage -- The night of the revolution -- While Ka slept and when he woke the next morning -- Ka in the cold rooms of terror -- Sunay Zaim's military and theatrical careers -- With Sunay at military headquarters -- The six-sided snowflake -- Ka with Kadife in the hotel room -- Blue's statement to the west -- Ka urges Turgut Bey to sign the statement -- Ka with Ipek in the hotel room -- In Frankfurt -- A short spell of happiness -- The secret meeting at the Hotel Asia -- On love, insignificance, and Blue's disappearance -- The fear of being shot -- The mediator -- Ka with Blue in his cell -- Bargaining in which life vies with theater, and art with politics -- Preparations for the play to end all plays -- An enforced visit -- Ka and Ipek meet at the hotel -- The first half of the chapter -- The missing green notebook -- From Ipek's point of view -- The final act -- Four years later, in Kars

Touching, slyly comic, and humming with cerebral suspense—a masterful novel of "political intrigue and philosophy, romance and noir" (Vogue) and the lethal chemistry between secular doubt and Islamic fanaticism from the Nobel Prize winner.
An exiled poet named Ka returns to Turkey and travels to the forlorn city of Kars. His ostensible purpose is to report on a wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden to wear their head-scarves. But Ka is also drawn by his memories of the radiant Ipek, now recently divorced.
Amid blanketing snowfall and universal suspicion, Ka finds himself pursued by figures ranging from Ipek’s ex-husband to a charismatic terrorist. A lost gift returns with ecstatic suddenness. A theatrical evening climaxes in a massacre. And finding god may be the prelude to losing everything else.

A Turkish poet returns home from a long exile in Germany to attend the funeral of his mother, eventually traveling to the countryside to learn more about the rash of suicides by young girls there, and to reconnect with a woman from his past

2023-06-28