The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk "A Novel"

The Black Book a Book by Orhan Pamuk

Galip is a lawyer living in Istanbul. His wife, the detective novel–loving Ruya, has disappeared. Could she have left him for her ex-husband or Celâl, a popular newspaper columnist? But Celâl, too, seems to have vanished. As Galip investigates, he finds himself assuming the enviable Celâl's identity, wearing his clothes, answering his phone calls, even writing his columns. Galip pursues every conceivable clue, but the nature of the mystery keeps changing, and when he receives a death threat, he begins to fear the worst. With its cascade of beguiling stories about Istanbul, The Black Book is a brilliantly unconventional mystery, and a provocative meditation on identity. For Turkish literary readers it is the cherished cult novel in which Orhan Pamuk found his original voice, but it has largely been neglected by English-language readers. Now, in Maureen Freely’s beautiful new translation, they, too, may encounter all its riches.

Editor Review

“A terrible error grew as humans spread out around the globe from our common ancestors in Southern Africa: Race became a source of division and hierarchy instead of the minor adaptation to climate it truly was. The Black Book records some of the everyday suffering and wisdom that this false hierarchy has caused. There is not a member of the human family on earth who cannot learn from it.” —Gloria Steinem

“The Black Book is an important document of American history that defines a people’s strength, hope, and perseverance. By honoring the past, Toni Morrison’s remarkable book sheds light on the present, and shows the unlimited potential for the future.” —Gay Talese

“I remember first coming across this book as a child and understanding even then that I was holding in my hands a majestic miracle that managed to beautifully, painfully, and accurately convey both the tragedy and the triumph of four hundred years of the black experience. I am so grateful that a new generation will get the opportunity to feel what I felt.”—Nikole Hannah-Jones

“I first read The Black Book as a young man, sneaking it out of my dad’s library. It is appropriate that it should be returned to the world of publishing as we consider Morrison’s legacy, and the many dimensions of the much deserved monument we now seek to erect in her honor.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates

About Author

“A friend introduced me to Middleton (Spike) Harris [a retired city employee], who became the chief author of the project. His collection of black memorabilia is extensive and his passion for the subject as intense as it is thorough. . . . His friend Morris Levitt, a retired public-school teacher and amateur black sports enthusiast, joined Harris on the project. So did Roger Furman, an actor and director of New York’s black New Heritage Repertory Theater. Finally, Ernest Smith [a collector of black memorabilia since he was fourteen] also joined. . . . All of these men have one thing in common: an intense love for black expression and a zest wholly free of academic careerism.”—Toni Morrison, in “Rediscovering Black History,” The New York Times .Toni Morrison was the author of award-winning works of fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature. Her fifth novel, Beloved, earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. She died in August 2019..