A New Translation and Afterword by Maureen Freely
Galip is a lawyer living in Istanbul. His wife, the detective
novel–loving Ruya, has disappeared. Could she have left him for her
ex-husband or Cel?l, a popular newspaper columnist? But Cel?l, too,
seems to have vanished. As Galip investigates, he finds himself
assuming the enviable Cel?l's identity, wearing his clothes,
answering his phone calls, even writing his columns. Galip pursues
every conceivable clue, but the nature of the mystery keeps
changing, and when he receives a death threat, he begins to fear
the worst.
With its cascade of beguiling stories about Istanbul, The Black
Book is a brilliantly unconventional mystery, and a provocative
meditation on identity. For Turkish literary readers it is the
cherished cult novel in which Orhan Pamuk found his original voice,
but it has largely been neglected by English-language readers. Now,
in Maureen Freely’s beautiful new translation, they, too, may
encounter all its riches.