The Museum of Innocence

Author: Orhan Pamuk

For many years, Orhan Pamuk had been asked the question: "Are you Kemal, the hero of your novel, The Museum of Innocence?" When it was time for the renowned Turkish Nobel laureate to open a museum on the European side of the Bosphorus bearing the name of his novel, he finally decided to answer, saying: "Yes, I too spent my childhood and youth between 1950 and 1990, growing up among the children of the bourgeoisie in 'Nişantaşı'. Later, Kemal and I were both ostracized from the class we belonged to. To be precise, we were cast out. Kemal because of his love for Füsün, and I because of my love for literature and my political stance. Neither of us regrets it." "The Museum of Innocence" is, above all, an idea about love. It is a story of an impossible love between Kemal, from Istanbul's aristocratic class in the 1970s, and Füsün, a poor girl to whom he is distantly related. The details go beyond the bounds of traditional romance, revealing man's perplexity between Eastern and Western cultures, without being isolated from the social and political changes that surrounded Istanbul at that time, leaving a profound impact even on lovers' stories.