Other Colors : Essays and a Story

Pamuk, Orhan; Freely, Maureen (Translator)

ISBN 10: 0307266753 / ISBN 13: 9780307266750

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 2007

About this Item

Fine/Fine (31267) . SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. First American edition, first printing. Fine in a fine dust jacket, now in a new Mylar protector. Though the latest book from Nobel Prize-winning Pamuk (Istanbul, Snow) is a standard late-career essay collection, it makes clear the reasons behind the Turkish author's acclaim. Eschewing flash and flourish, Pamuk's style is plain, simple and persuasive-but therein lies its subtle power, well represented over more than 75 pieces divided into sections like Living and Worrying and Politics, Europe, and Other Problems of Being Oneself. Self-reflection and cultural evolution emerge often as twin themes, as in his consideration of the Thousand and One Nights: In those days, young Turks like me who considered themselves modern viewed the classics of eastern literature as one might a dark and impenetrable forest. These concerns lead naturally to political considerations, such as his conclusion that the lies about the war in Iraq and. secret CIA prisons have so damaged the West's credibility in Turkey. it is more and more difficult for people like me to make the case for true western democracy in my part of the world. There's humor as well; in Giving Up Smoking, a smoking cab driver begs Pamuk's pardon: He was opening the window. 'No,' I said, 'keep it closed. I've given up smoking.' Also included are musings on his own books and a short story, To Look Out the Window. Disarmingly honest, Pamuk refuses to give in to melodrama or stylistic quirks, giving his feeling and frustration crystalline clarity and lasting weight. (PW).

Seller Inventory # 31267

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Other Colors : Essays and a Story
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0307266753
• ISBN 13: 9780307266750
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First American edition.
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

Orhan Pamuk’s first book since winning the Nobel Prize, Other Colors is a dazzling collection of essays on his life, his city, his work, and the example of other writers.

Over the last three decades, Pamuk has written, in addition to his seven novels, scores of pieces—personal, critical, and meditative—the finest of which he has brilliantly woven together here. He opens a window on his private life, from his boyhood dislike of school to his daughter’s precocious melancholy, from his successful struggle to quit smoking to his anxiety at the prospect of testifying against some clumsy muggers who fell upon him during a visit to New York City. From ordinary obligations such as applying for a passport or sharing a holiday meal with relatives, he takes extraordinary flights of imagination; in extreme moments, such as the terrifying days following a cataclysmic earthquake in Istanbul, he lays bare our most basic hopes and fears. Again and again Pamuk declares his faith in fiction, engaging the work of such predecessors as Laurence Sterne and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, sharing fragments from his notebooks, and commenting on his own novels. He contemplates his mysterious compulsion to sit alone at a desk and dream, always returning to the rich deliverance that is reading and writing.

By turns witty, moving, playful, and provocative, Other Colors glows with the energy of a master at work and gives us the world through his eyes, assigning every radiant theme and shifting mood its precise shade in the spectrum of significance.

About the Author

Orhan Pamuk is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2006. His novel My Name Is Red won the 2003 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages. He lives in Istanbul.