Novel
The White Castle
Beyaz Kale
Orhan Pamuk · 1985
Synopsis
A young Italian scholar sailing from Venice to Naples is captured by the Ottoman fleet and enslaved. His master, the Hodja, a scholar of his own age, looks strikingly like him; Cosma Shalizi speaks of an exact double. The pasha has him help the Hodja prepare fireworks for his son's wedding, then the narrator teaches his master astronomy and Western science, and the two men design an enormous iron weapon for the sultan.
Context
The novel, the author's third, appeared in 1985. It presents itself as a manuscript found by the historian Faruk Darvınoğlu among old administrative papers in Gebze, which he publishes after trying in vain to trace its author. It is read as a novel of slavery, the power of knowledge, the Empire's failure to modernise and the ambiguity of identity. Victoria Holbrook's English translation appeared in 1990, Münevver Andaç's French one from Gallimard in 1996.
Who it is for
A short novel, without dialogue according to Cosma Shalizi, translated into French by Gallimard and reissued in 1999.
Prizes and reception
The book that brought the author his first renown abroad, according to his website and the Swedish Academy.
Sources for this page 5
The pages consulted to check this page.