Snow
by Orhan Pamuk
Maureen Freely, translator
$26.00 Hardcover
Alfred A. Knopf

From the acclaimed author of My Name Is Red comes a spellbinding tale of colliding romantic, political, and spiritual passions that blends profound sympathy and mischievous wit, illuminating the contradictions gripping the individual and collective heart in many parts of the Muslim world.

Library Journal (Thursday , April 01, 2004):
Winner of the 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for My Name Is Red, Pamuk crafts the story of a Turkish poet who returns from exile in Germany and is promptly drawn into investigations surrounding the mysterious suicide of several girls in a remote village. With a five-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal (Thursday , July 01, 2004):
Upon returning to his home in secular Turkey, a poet named Ka discovers two things that will change his life: Ipek, the girl he loved as a child, still lives in the city of Kars, and the community has been stunned by a rash of suicides of zealously religious girls who refused to remove their head scarves while in public. With an investigator's eye, Ka seeks out information about the tragedies from all sources, eventually leading to the man at the eye of the storm-"Blue," a charismatic Islamite who will not let the message that these girls carried be silenced. While in Kars, the normally reticent Ka dares to approach "happiness" where once he suffered terrible writer's block, his poems now flow effortlessly, and his new-found love appears to love him back, but the figure of Blue and the deep waters in which Ka has immersed himself threaten his promising future. Like Pamuk's previous My Name Is Red, this story is thick with detail concerning the country's background; it does take some time to introduce all the characters. Once everyone is in place, however, the novel picks up and ultimately is a worthwhile read for those interested in a closer look at the hot topics of religion, its devout followers, and what arises from such passions. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 4/1/04.]-Marc Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly (Monday , July 19, 2004):
A Turkish poet who spent 12 years as a political exile in Germany witnesses firsthand the clash between radical Islam and Western ideals in this enigmatically beautiful novel. Ka's reasons for visiting the small Turkish town of Kars are twofold: curiosity about the rash of suicides by young girls in the town and a hope to reconnect with "the beautiful Ipek," whom he knew as a youth. But Kars is a tangle of poverty-stricken families, Kurdish separatists, political Islamists (including Ipek's spirited sister Kadife) and Ka finds himself making compromises with all in a desperate play for his own happiness. Ka encounters government officials, idealistic students, leftist theater groups and the charismatic and perhaps terroristic Blue while trying to convince Ipek to return to Germany with him; each conversation pits warring ideologies against each other and against Ka's own weary melancholy. Pamuk himself becomes an important character, as he describes his attempts to piece together "what really happened" in the few days his friend Ka spent in Kars, during which snow cuts off the town from the rest of the world and a bloody coup from an unexpected source hurtles toward a startling climax. Pamuk's sometimes exhaustive conversations and descriptions create a stark picture of a too-little-known part of the world, where politics, religion and even happiness can seem alternately all-consuming and irrelevant. A detached tone and some dogmatic abstractions make for tough reading, but Ka's rediscovery of God and poetry in a desolate place makes the novel's sadness profound and moving. Agent, Andrew Wylie. (Aug.) Forecast: Pamuk's reputation-bigger outside the U.S. than in-enjoyed a boost with 2001's My Name Is Red. This timely, thoughtful and demanding book may see it grow further. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publisher Marketing:
From the acclaimed author of "My Name Is Red, a spellbinding tale of colliding romantic, political, and spiritual passions. Ka, a Turkish poet, is drained of feeling and inspiration by years of lonely political exile in Germany. But when he returns to Istanbul for the funeral of his mother, news of strange events--a wave of suicides among pious girls forbidden to wear their head-scarves at school--sparks his writer's curiosity and draws him to the remote border town of Kars. At first, Ka's interest in Kars is merely journalistic. But as the fiercest snowstorm in memory descends upon the city, sealing it off from modern, secular order, his mind and heart are drawn in unexpected directions: into the maelstrom of a military coup staged to stem the rise of militant Islamism; toward God, the possibility of whose existence he has never allowed himself to contemplate; and into romantic love with Ipek, a radiant friend of his youth he has never forgotten. In this otherworldly state, Ka begins to tap into his long dormant creative powers. But not until the snows have melted and the violence has run its bloody course will Ka discover whether he is brave enough to seize a last chance for happiness.

Jacket Description/Flap:
From the acclaimed author of "My Name Is Red ("a sumptuous thriller"-John Updike; "chockful of sublimity and sin"-"New York Times Book Review), comes a spellbinding tale of disparate yearnings-for love, art, power, and God-set in a remote Turkish town, where stirrings of political Islamism threaten to unravel the secular order. Following years of lonely political exile in Western Europe, Ka, a middle-aged poet, returns to Istanbul to attend his mother's funeral. Only partly recognizing this place of his cultured, middle-class youth, he is even more disoriented by news of strange events in the wider country: a wave of suicides among girls forbidden to wear their head scarves at school. An apparent thaw of his writer's curiosity-a frozen sea these many years-leads him to Kars, a far-off town near the Russian border and the epicenter of the suicides. No sooner has he arrived, however, than we discover that Ka's motivations are not purely journalistic; for in Kars, once a province of Ottoman and then Russian glory, now a cultural gray-zone of poverty and paralysis, there is also Ipek, a radiant friend of Ka's youth, lately divorced, whom he has never forgotten. As a snowstorm, the fiercest in memory, descends on the town and seals it off from the modern, westernized world that has always been Ka's frame of reference, he finds himself drawn in unexpected directions: not only headlong toward the unknowable Ipek and the desperate hope for love-or at least a wife-that she embodies, but also into the maelstrom of a military coup staged to restrain the local Islamist radicals, and even toward God, whose existence Ka has never before allowed himself to contemplate. In this surrealconfluence of emotion and spectacle, Ka begins to tap his dormant creative powers, producing poem after poem in untimely, irresistible bursts of inspiration. But not until the snows have melted and the political violence has run its bloody course will Ka discover the fate of his bid to seize a last chance for happiness. Blending profound sympathy and mischievous wit, "Snow illuminates the contradictions gripping the individual and collective heart in many parts of the Muslim world. But even more, by its narrative brilliance and comprehension of the needs and duties