Death of the Father, Death of the Son: On Orhan Pamuk’s ‘The Red-Haired Woman’
The new works of a Nobel Prize winner such as Orhan Pamuk (who won the award in 2006) are subject to intense scrutiny, in case they show any sign of decline on the part of the author. But Pamuk’s most recent novel, The Red-Haired Woman, exhibits profound skill on Pamuk’s part and acts as a vehicle for social analysis, theory, and critique on par with the best works of Balzac. With his latest, Pamuk has created an important means of understanding the dynamics underlying contemporary political upheavals and the struggles between secularists and Islamists in Pamuk’s native Turkey.
begins during the teenage years of its main character, Cem, who is preparing to take his entrance exams for university. He takes on a summer job as an apprentice to a well digger named Master Mahmut in order to fund
