La nueva novela del Premio Nobel Orhan Pamuk. Una historia de amor y parricidio en el Estambul de 1980.

Hoy por hoy, despues de tantos anos, los celos me impelen a no revelar su nombre, ni siquiera a mis lectores. Pero debo contar fielmente lo que ocurrio a continuacion.

En las afueras del Estambul de 1985, un maestro pocero y su joven aprendiz son contratados para encontrar agua en una llanura esteril. Mientras excavan sin suerte metro a metro, nace entre ellos un vinculo casi paterno-filial, una dependencia mutua que se vera alterada cuando el adolescente se enamore perdidamente de una misteriosa mujer de pelo rojo: un primer amor que marcara el resto de sus dias.

El viaje de este joven hacia la edad adulta se acompasa al de una Turquia que ha ido transformandose de forma irreversible, y le sirve a Orhan Pamuk para regresar a los temas que han dominado una buena parte de su obra. En esta mezcla de fabula, relato mitologico y tragedia contemporanea, el autor vuelve a poner frente a frente las culturas de Occidente y Oriente explorando dos de sus mitos fundacionales: el Edipo Rey de Sofocles y la historia de Rostam y Sohrab, inmortalizada por el poeta persa Ferdousi en la epopeya del Shahname o Libro de los Reyes. Ambas tragedias discurren por debajo de una trama absorbente, en una novela de ideas que profundiza, entre otros temas, en la familia y la figura paterna, reafirmando al premio Nobel como uno de los grandes escritores de nuestra epoca.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

From the Nobel Prize winner and best-selling author of Snow and My Name Is Red, a fable of fathers and sons and the desires that come between them.

On the outskirts of a town thirty miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before–not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world. But in the nearby town, where they buy provisions and take their evening break, the boy will find an irresistible diversion. The Red-Haired Woman, an alluring member of a travelling theatre company, catches his eye and seems as fascinated by him as he is by her. The young man’s wildest dream will be realized, but, when in his distraction a horrible accident befalls the well digger, the boy will flee, returning to Istanbul. Only years later will he discover whether he was in fact responsible for his master’s death and who the redheaded enchantress was.

A beguiling mystery tale of family and romance, of east and west, tradition and modernity, by one of the great storytellers of our time.