Her gün, daima öğleden sonra oraya gidiyor, koridorlardaki resimlere bakıyormuş gibi ağır ağır, fakat büyük bir sabırsızlıkla asıl hedefine varmak isteyen adımlarımı zorla zapt ederek geziniyor, rastgele gözüme çarpmış gibi önünde durduğum Kürk Mantolu Madonnayı seyre dalıyor, ta kapılar kapanıncaya kadar orada bekliyordum.

Kimi tutkular rehberimiz olur yaşam boyunca. Kollarıyla bizi sarar. Sorgulamadan peşlerinden gideriz ve hiç pişman olmayacağımızı biliriz. Yapıtlarında insanların görünmeyen yüzlerini ortaya çıkaran Sabahattin Ali, bu kitabında güçlü bir tutkunun resmini çiziyor. Düzenin sildiği kişiliklere, yaşamın uçuculuğuna ve aşkın olanaksızlığına dair, yanıtlanması zor sorular soruyor.

'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'

For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her.

Tutunamayanlar, Türk edebiyatının en önemli eserlerinden biri olarak kabul edilir. Berna Moran, eseri "hem söyledikleri hem de söyleyiş biçimiyle bir başkaldırı" olarak niteler. Moran'a göre, "Oğuz Atay'ın mizah gücü, duyarlılığı ve kullandığı teknik incelikler, Tutunamayanlar'ı büyük bir yeteneğin ürünü yapmış, yapıttaki bu yetkinlik Türk romanını çağdaş roman anlayışıyla aynı hizaya getirmiş ve ona çok şey kazandırmıştır." Küçük burjuva dünyasını zekice alaya alan Atay, saldırısını, tutunanların anlamayacağı, reddedeceği türden bir romanla yapar. Tutunamayanlar, 1970 TRT Roman Ödülü'nü kazanmıştır.

"It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn’t know it." So begins the new novel, his first since winning the Nobel Prize, from the universally acclaimed author of Snow and My Name Is Red.

It is 1975, a perfect spring in Istanbul. Kemal, scion of one of the city’s wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeoisie—a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, restaurant rituals, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay—until finally he breaks off his engagement to Sibel. But his resolve comes too late.

For eight years, Kemal will find excuses to visit another Istanbul, that of the impoverished backstreets where Füsun, her heart now hardened, lives with her parents. There, Kemal discovers the consolations of middle-class life at a dinner table in front of the television. His obsessive love will also take him to the demimonde of Istanbul film circles (where he promises to make Füsun a star), a scene of seedy bars, run-down cheap hotels, and small men with big dreams doomed to bitter failure.

In his feckless pursuit, Kemal becomes a compulsive collector of objects that chronicle his lovelorn progress and his afflicted heart’s reactions: anger and impatience, remorse and humiliation, deluded hopes of recovery, and daydreams that transform Istanbul into a cityscape of signs and specters of his beloved, from whom now he can extract only meaningful glances and stolen kisses in cars, movie houses, and shadowy corners of parks.

A last chance to realize his dream will come to an awful end before Kemal discovers that all he finally can possess, certainly and eternally, is the museum he has created of his collection, this map of a society’s manners and mores, and of one man’s broken heart.

A stirring exploration of the nature of romantic attachment and of the mysterious allure of collecting, The Museum of Innocence also plumbs the depths of an Istanbul half Western and half traditional—its emergent modernity, its vast cultural history. This is Orhan Pamuk’s greatest achievement.

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 Celâl, a popular newspaper columnist? But Celâl, too, seems to have vanished. As Galip investigates, he finds himself assuming the enviable Celâl'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. 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.

Istanbul: Memories and the City is a shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer, Orhan Pamuk. Born in Istanbul, Pamuk still resides in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms.

His portrait of his city is also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes from living amid the ruins of a lost empire.

With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters—both Turkish and foreign—who would shape his consciousness of his city.

Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.

Kuyucaklı Yusuf is a poignant tale set in the early 20th century in the rural village of Kuyucak, Turkey. The story begins on a rainy autumn night in 1903, when the district governor, Salahattin Bey, investigates the murder of a couple in the village. He discovers their nine-year-old son, Yusuf, who has witnessed the tragedy. Moved by the boy's plight, Salahattin Bey adopts Yusuf, bringing him into a household fraught with tension.

Yusuf grows up alongside Muazzez, the governor's daughter, amidst the discord between Salahattin Bey and his much younger wife, Şahinde Hanım. The couple's strained relationship only worsens with Yusuf's presence, as Şahinde resents the young boy.

As Yusuf matures, he navigates the complexities of love and loss, with Muazzez becoming a central figure in his life. Despite the harshness of the world around him, Yusuf's journey is marked by a lyrical romance and a tragic trajectory that cements his place in Turkish literary history as a romantic hero.

Sabahattin Ali masterfully captures the essence of rural life, painting a vivid picture of a community rife with hardship and beauty. The novel's exploration of human nature and societal constraints remains timeless, offering readers a glimpse into the heart of a nation and the soul of a man.

Yeniçeriler kapıyı zorlarken Uzun İhsan Efendi hâlâ malûm konuyu düşünüyor, fakat işin içinden bir türlü çıkamıyordu...

“Rendekâr doğru mu söylüyor? Düşünüyorum, öyleyse varım. Oldukça makûl. Fakat bundan tam tersi bir sonuç, varolmadığım, bir düş olduğum sonucu da çıkar: Düşünen bir adamı düşünüyorum. Düşündüğümü bildiğim için, ben varım. Düşündüğünü bildiğim için, düşlediğim bu adamın da varolduğunu biliyorum. Böylece o da benim kadar gerçek oluyor. Bundan sonrası çok daha hüzünlü bir sonuca varıyor. Düşündüğünü düşündüğüm bu adamın beni düşlediğini düşlüyorum. Öylese gerçek olan biri beni düşlüyor. O gerçek, ben ise bir düş oluyorum.”

Kapı kırıldığında Uzun İhsan Efendi kitabı kapadı. Az sonra başına geleceklere aldırmadan kafasından şunları geçirdi: “Dünya bir düştür. Evet, dünya... Ah! Evet, dünya bir masaldır.”

Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü is a masterpiece by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, known for using a symbolist language in his poetry and a realistic style addressing social issues in his novels. This book is a cornerstone novel that examines the struggle of the Turkish people between the East and the West.

The book draws its content and themes from its characters: Nuri Efendi (the Clock Master), Mübarek (an old English wall clock), Halit Ayarcı, and the intricate relationship between time, clocks, and humans. The narrative, with Tanpınar's unique symbolic storytelling, transforms as the events unfold, highlighting how people's obsession with popularity and money can lead to sudden changes in their demeanor.

This critical novel satirizes the misguided attitudes and behaviors of a society caught between two civilizations. The story is structured around the memoirs of Hayri İrdal, whose childhood spans the reign of Abdülhamit II, the Constitutional Monarchy, and the Republic periods. The novel is divided into four parts: Great Expectations, Small Truths, Towards the Morning, and Every Season Has an End.