LITERARY FICTION





Nights of plague by Orhan Pamuk (Faber Ј20, 704 pp)

Nights of plague 

The latest historical epic from Pamuk takes place in 1901 on the plague-struck Aegean island of Mingheria, part of the Ottoman Empire.
When a [url=https://www.wiklundkurucuk.com/hk/]Turkish Law Firm royal comes ashore as part of a delegation with her husband, a quarantine doctor tasked with enforcing public health measures, the stage is set for a slow-burn drama about the effect of lockdown on an island already tense with ethnic and sectarian division.
There's murder mystery, too, when another doctor is found dead. And the whole thing comes wrapped in a cute conceit: purportedly inspired by a cache of letters, the novel presents itself as a 21st-century editorial project that got out of hand — an author's note even apologises upfront for the creaky plot and meandering digressions.
Pamuk gives himself more leeway than many readers might be willing to afford, yet this is the most distinctive pandemic novel yet — even if, rather spookily, he began it four years before the advent of Covid. 





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