The Red-Haired Woman

Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. His novel My Name Is Red won the 2003 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His work has been translated into more than sixty languages.

From the Nobel Prize winner and bestselling author of Snow and My Name Is Red, a fable of fathers and sons and the desires that come between them.
On the outskirts of a town thirty miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before--not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world. But in the nearby town, where they buy provisions and take their evening break, the boy will find an irresistible diversion. The Red-Haired Woman, an alluring member of a travelling theatre company, catches his eye and seems as fascinated by him as he is by her. The young man's wildest dream will be realized, but, when in his distraction a horrible accident befalls the well digger, the boy will flee, returning to Istanbul. Only years later will he discover whether he was in fact responsible for his master's death and who the red-headed enchantress was.
A beguiling mystery tale of family and romance, of east and west, tradition and modernity, by one of the great storytellers of our time.

Masterly . . . [a] clever, absorbing taleThe Red-Haired Woman shines and reiterates Pamuk's strong hold over his melancholic oeuvreMakes the reader feel as if they've emerged from the depths of a well into sudden and dazzling light . . . An extraordinary piece of writingQuietly beautifulThis book sings with the power of diverse remembranceAn ending that makes you immediately start the book all over again speaks for itselfAn intriguing modern take on the Oedipus story. . . . It's a deep, honest, poignant, painful exploration of humanity's ability to cover up its own essence with civilised ideas and behavioursAbsorbing . . . Pamuk's intense political parable tells us much about the plight of Turkey todayPamuk's tale of love and death draws heavily on the Oedipus myth, but such is his mastery of storytelling that every character feels fresh, while the vignettes of modern Turkey ring trueThe Red-Haired Woman is shorter than Orhan Pamuk's best-known novels, and is, in comparison, pared down, written with deliberate simplicity-ostensibly by a narrator who knows that he is not a writer, but only a building contractor. Polyphonic narratives are replaced by a powerful, engaging clarity. . . . The shifts between generations is beautifully shown through the often hideous changes wrought in Istanbul itself by modernisationHe is a weaver of tales par excellence, with an unmatched sense for the ways that social change affect individual psychology and a restrained, genteel prose style that disguises the unruly passions just below the surface. In this mode he most resembles Ivan Turgenev, the great portraitist of 19th-century Russia... Allusive, enchanting and perfectly controlledPlayful and unsettling. . . . An intriguing addition to his body of workA pleasure to readThe Red-Haired Woman, like all good novels determined to deliver political and social criticism, understands that pleasure in the means of the delivery must equal the value of the thing saidIt can fall to fiction to remind us of what has come before . . . a tale of slow reveal secrets [and] lovePamuk masterfully contrasts East with West, tradition with modernity, the power of fables with the inevitability of realism . . . As usual, Pamuk handles weighty material deftly, and the result is both puzzling and beautifulEngaging and deftly told . . . Pamuk's postmodern puzzles are meticulous as ever, and The Red-Haired Woman contains a wealth of atmospheric detail and memorable scenesPamuk skillfully intermingles textual traditions and historical time periods, establishing the trademark intertextuality and intertemporality of his fiction