The Black Book

The Black Book is a novel published in 1990 by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. It first appeared in Turkish as Kara Kitap; an English translation by Güneli Gün came out in 1994, and Maureen Freely's version followed in 2006.

The protagonist is Galip, a lawyer in Istanbul whose wife, Rüya (Turkish for "dream"), leaves him one day with almost no explanation. Galip roams the city searching for clues and suspects she has gone off with her half-brother Celal, a columnist for the newspaper Milliyet, but Celal has vanished too. The search is interwoven with reprints of Celal's columns, lengthy literary meditations on the city and its past. Convinced that by living as Celal he can understand how the man thinks and find them both, Galip moves into his apartment, wears his clothes and eventually writes his columns. Meanwhile he receives calls from a fan obsessed with the columnist, and a former lover of Celal's reads Galip's pieces as pleas meant for her.

The novel blends the conventions of the detective story with a reflection on storytelling as a means of constructing identity. Pamuk layers tales within the main story, touching on both the Ottoman past and contemporary Istanbul, and draws on the classical Eastern narrative tradition, notably Islamic mysticism, alongside Western postmodern techniques. Near the end the narrator reveals himself as the author, deepening its metafictional play. Its central concerns are individual identity and that of the city and of the Turkish nation, caught between inherited tradition and Westernization. It remains one of the most influential works of contemporary Turkish fiction and helped establish Pamuk's international reputation.