The Red-Haired Woman

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Orhan Pamuk, is the author of many celebrated books, including The White Castle, Istanbul and Snow. In 2003 he won the International IMPAC Award for My Name is Red, and in 2006 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His most recent novel, The Museum of Innocence, was an international bestseller and shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. Orhan Pamuk lives in Istanbul.

It is mid-1980s Istanbul and Master Mahmut and his apprentice use ancient methods to dig wells - they are desperate to find water in a barren land. This is the tale of their struggle, but it is also a deeper investigation - through stories and images - into themes such as: fathers and sons, the state and individual freedom, reading and seeing. Many years have now gone by, and jealousy compels me to keep her name a secret, even from my readers. But I must provide a full and truthful account of what happened. It is mid-1980s Istanbul and Master Mahmut and his apprentice use ancient methods to dig wells - they are desperate to find water in a barren land. This is the tale of their struggle, but it is also a deeper investigation - through mesmerising stories and images - into Pamuks prevailing themes: fathers and sons, the state and individual freedom, reading and seeing. It is also a richly literary work: The Red-Haired Woman borrows from the tradition of the French conte philosophique and asks probing questions of ethics and of the role of art in our lives. It is both a short, realist text investigating a murder which took place thirty years ago near Istanbul - and a fictional inquiry into the literary foundations of civilizations, comparing two fundamental myths of the West and the East respectively: Sophocless Oedipus Rex (a story of patricide) and Ferdowsis tale of Rostam and Sohrab (a story of filicide). The Red-Haired Woman is a masterful and mesmerising work which further confirms Orhan Pamuk as one of our greatest novelists.

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