Nights of Plague
| Author | Orhan Pamuk |
|---|---|
| Original title | Veba Geceleri |
| Translator | Ekin Oklap |
| Country | Turkey |
| Language | Turkish |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Yapi Kredi Yayinlari |
Publication date | March 23, 2021 |
Published in English | October 4, 2022 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 544 pp. (original Turkish) 704 pp. (English translation). |
| ISBN | 978-0525656890 |
Nights of Plague (Turkish: Veba Geceleri) is a 2021 novel by Orhan Pamuk.[1] Its Pamuk's 11th and longest novel. Inspired by historical events, it is set on a fictitious island, Mingheria, in the eastern Mediterranean between Crete and Cyprus.[2]
A number of early reviewers observed that Nights of Plague's plot resembles that of Albert Camus's novel The Plague.[3] Its English translation, by Ekin Oklap, was published by Knopf Doubleday in the United States and Faber and Faber in the United Kingdom.[4]
Background[edit]
In 2016, Pamuk began writing a historical novel about a bubonic plague epidemic on a fictitious island. He was particularly interested in the way plagues are Orientalized in such books as Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year, Manzoni's The Betrothed, and Camus's The Plague.[5] In a 2020 article, he wrote that Western observers such as Defoe saw a fatalistic tendency in the Muslim worldview—the religious concept of "Every Man's end being determined", as Defoe put it.[6][7]
Plot summary[edit]
In 1901, a ship from Istanbul arrives on the island of Mingheria, where bubonic plague has broken out.[8] Mingheria serves as a microcosm of the declining Ottoman Empire, where diverse groups coexist but are on the brink of disintegration.[9] The plague reflects the empire's metaphorical characterization as "the sick man of Europe". To combat it, Sultan Abdul Hamid II dispatches Bonkowski Pasha, the empire's chief inspector of public health, and a Muslim epidemiologist, Prince Consort Doctor Nuri, and his wife, the sultan's niece Princess Pakize.[10]
When Bonkowski is murdered, it falls upon Pakize and Nuri to employ methods reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes to identify the culprit. Simultaneously, Western approaches to controlling the plague are attempted.[11] But the islanders resist quarantine measures, resulting in an increasing number of infectious bodies.[12] Amid this chaos, gruesome discoveries like two corpses fused together are made, leaving questions about their relationship unanswered.[13]
Themes and style[edit]
Matt A. Hanson of World Literature Today noted that the motifs of Nights of Plague are prevalent in the latter years of Ottoman collapse, notably during Abdul Hamid's disastrous reign. Pamuk fictionalizes the formation of the fragmented political identities that sparked World War I and eventually strengthened the foundations of the Turkish republic.[14] In The Atlantic, Judith Shulevitz wrote that Nights of Plague is plainly satire and metaphor, mordantly riffing on Ottoman, revolutionary, and nationalist leadership styles in a critique of Atatürk, Kemalism, and even President Erdoğan's government—but not in a single sentence.[15]
Reception[edit]
In his review for The New Yorker, James Wood noted that Pamuk, though aware how plague has historically been unfairly Orientalized, seems to relish Orientalizing Mingheria, imbuing it with swirls of Ottoman magic and mythology. Toward the end of the book, its narrator mentions the "negatively inflected sense" of Edward Said's term "Orientalism".[6]
In his review for The Times, Peter Kemp wrote that Nights of Plague masterfully weaves a tale of intrigue and disease.[16]
References[edit]
- ^ Walia, Shelly. "'Nights of Plague' by Orhan Pamuk: Creating fiction out of history". The Tribune (India).
- ^ Kellman, Steven G. (4 October 2022). "Orhan Pamuk's 'Nights of Plague' entangles an epidemic with a (fictional) revolution". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Ley, James (11 November 2022). "'Extraordinary achievement': Nobel winner gives us one of his finest creations". The Sydney Morning Herald.
- ^ Hughes-Hallett, Lucy (21 September 2022). "Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk review – a playful approach to big themes". The Guardian.
- ^ "'First, survive. Don't rush to jail. Then, write.'". Washington Post. 2022-10-13. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
- ^ a b Wood, James (24 October 2022). "Outbreaks and Uprisings in Orhan Pamuk's "Nights of Plague"". The New Yorker.
- ^ "Opinion | What the Great Pandemic Novels Teach Us". The New York Times. 2020-04-23. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-09-27.
- ^ Gates, David (30 September 2022). "A Nobelist's New Novel, Rife With Pestilence and Writerly Tricks". The New York Times.
- ^ Gordon, Peter (24 October 2022). ""Nights of Plague" by Orhan Pamuk". Asian Review of Books.
- ^ Genç, Kaya (4 April 2023). "Orhan Pamuk Turns an Outbreak Into a Revolution". The New Republic.
- ^ Karthik, Savitha. "Shaped by the scourge". Deccan Herald.
- ^ Goldsmith, Jane Turner (18 October 2022). "Curfews, quarantine, fake news, insurrection: Orhan Pamuk's Nights of Plague feels eerily prescient". The Conversation.
- ^ Hoffert, Barbara. "Reading the World | Key Works of Translated Fiction for Fall". Library Journal.
- ^ Hanson, Matt. "Nights of Plague: A Novel by Orhan Pamuk". World Literature Today.
- ^ Shulevitz, Judith (30 September 2022). "Orhan Pamuk's Literature of Paranoia". The Atlantic.
- ^ Kemp, Peter (27 September 2023). "Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk review — a Turkish delight". The Times.