Orhan Pamuk’s newly translated “Nights of Plague” is a novel of contradictions: humorous as it is dire, historical as it is fictitious. Telling the story of an imagined island off the coast of Turkey struck by plague in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, it examines both the disruptive force of pandemics and the rise of global authoritarianism through a fictional lens.
Pamuk’s conjoined interest in these strikingly contemporary themes was coincidental; he began writing the book several years before the appearance of the coronavirus. His use of plague as a metaphor for the outbreak of authoritarianism, however, was no accident, as he recently told The Washington Post in a wide-ranging conversation conducted in English about “Nights of Plague.”
Pamuk’s allegory has not gone unnoticed by the powers that be, earning the Nobel laureate legal trouble for supposedly insulting Turkey’s flag and the nation’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It’s not the first time Pamuk has stirred up nationalist ire, as he’s been charged with “insulting Turkishness” in the past.
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Even when discussing grave topics, Pamuk manages to remain optimistic, insisting that things might yet change for the better in his country.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“Nights of Plague” is a surprisingly funny book.
I wrote more than half of the story before the coronavirus pandemic, and my wife would go to work and she used to come home in those years before the pandemic, and I would read to her and say to her, Look, so many horrors are happening! So many people are dying! Fires, revolutions, executions, hanging of people, bubonic plague, one in three dies. … And my book is funny! Do you think that people think that I am heartless or what? She would say, Continue — go ahead. So I finished the book.
As you mentioned, you began it long before covid. What inspired you to write a plague story?
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Many years ago, I thought I’d write a historical novel set in a medieval Ottoman plague. In fact, in “Silent House,” one of my early books, there is an Ottoman historian who’s researching for documents about a past plague, and later even in “The White Castle” there are scenes of plague I was considering.
I began to read about 19th-century epidemics. I saw uprisings in Poland and Russia against the imposition of quarantine. In those times, almost without exception, in order to make the quarantine work, governments got authoritarian. [I read this as Recep] Tayyip Erdogan and the Erdogan government were getting authoritarian. Finally, I said, this is the time that I should write my allegorical, political novel, because it is an authoritarian situation. But before I finished it, the real pandemic took over.
I want to tell you this funny story. When I was writing the novel, I was thinking how the three greatest books ever written about the bubonic plague were Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year,” Alessandro Manzoni’s “The Betrothed” — the Italian “War and Peace” — and Albert Camus’ “The Plague.” These are the best novels about plague, and none of these writers had ever experienced plague. The most realistic is Daniel Defoe’s, psychologically, because he based his book on his uncle’s notebooks, who experienced the 1665 London plague. None of these three writers experienced plague, and neither had I. I was like, I’m the fourth one! Then suddenly we were overtaken by coronavirus, and everyone began saying How lucky you are.
Did the real pandemic impact “Nights of Plague?”
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Yes. In March and April 2020, when covid was a bit mysterious and there was no vaccination and everyone was frightened, I was over 65 and I was scared. And I realized, although I researched so much, my characters were not as afraid as I was. So I injected my fear into them.
Why set the story in a fictional place rather than in a real one?
I began this novel as a political allegory, but allegories are short, and it ended up being a panoramic description of the empire. Why did I need an island? I did not want to argue with the chroniclers of real places. I wanted an ideal place. Not Thomas More’s ideal Utopia island, but ideal in the way that it represents the generality.
A common theme throughout your work is the tension between tradition and modernity, especially in regard to religion. It’s central to “Snow.”
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It’s in all of my novels. Modernization, tradition — these may be lofty statements for historians or for sociologists, but for me, it should be a story. A human story. My idea of people is not that there are the good, modernist ones and there are the traditional ones — it’s not like that. We all have the desire for modernization and the desire for embracing the past or tradition, with different proportions in our minds. That is the way I treat my characters.
You mentioned that the novel grew partially out of a desire to address the rise of Erdogan’s authoritarianism …
There is no free speech in Turkey.
That’s exactly what I’d like to discuss. Freedom of expression is always under attack, but we’re living in a particularly perilous time in that regard. Turkey has imprisoned many writers and journalists as well as a number of musicians. The same in Iran of course. It’s a problem all over the world.
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I don’t want to generalize it. I mean, even in Trump’s America, there was free speech, no? He could not curtail it. He curtails women’s rights for abortion, or the court did that. There are right-wing populists in Europe — [Hungary’s Viktor] Orban — but he could not curtail free speech. In Turkey … there is no free speech, and you cannot have a real democracy without it. We have an electoral democracy. So many people are sent to prison so easily, so how can you say there is full democracy in Turkey? I don’t think it is. So, in the end, I don’t want to make global generalizations. I’m talking about Turkey.
You’ve been accused of insulting Turkishness again.
This time no. This time Kemal Atatürk and the flag. Insulting Turkishness was 2005. So more or less the same.
They get angry with me, they want to give me problems, but they cannot continue really. The public prosecutor invited me to his office, saying that the Major [from “Nights of Plague”] was an insult to Atatürk. This happened in May of this year. Then it was leaked — I didn’t do it — it was leaked to the media in summer. And then in the end, the conversation was like this: So which page? The prosecutor couldn’t tell a page. And nothing happened. My case, this time, is lost in the labyrinth of bureaucracy in Ankara.
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Is the investigation theoretically still open?
Yes, it’s still open. They are not pursuing it, but not closing it. In case they may one day need it.
Would you say that this is an attempt to silence you?
Maybe there’s an attempt of intimidation, but in the end, they know that it won’t work. But it is a political gesture. Don’t buy his book! Once there’s an investigation, once it’s reported big, lots of people believe it’s true. It’s nationalistic politics, of course.
In a world where authoritarianism is on the rise, what can writers or artists do to fight back?
First, survive. Don’t rush to jail. Then, write.
I am the vice president of PEN International. I care about free speech. I care about writers who are silenced, curtailed. I will not be silenced. I know there are writers who will not be silenced. This is all we can do.
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Also, we have to be modest. The power of literature is limited. We can only move the hearts of people who read books. Let’s not exaggerate the power of fiction.
What needs to change in Turkey?
Of course, the first thing we need is free speech. And on the human side, we need leaders who are more tender, compassionate. Who pity the people. Who do not only look at statistics.
Turkish people are really suffering immense poverty. I’ve never seen my country — or any country — get so poor in two or three years. Income per capita went down. The nation is eating, consuming less. Enjoying less. I feel the anger.
When I came to Turkey before, there was a much more lighthearted atmosphere. Now it feels like a more closed-off country. Is that driven by an increase in nationalism?
It’s closed off for other reasons, not ideological reasons. It is closed off because of poverty. You cannot eat. You cannot travel because of poverty. And the nation is angry.
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I don’t think the country is more nationalist than, say, 10 years ago. The nation is angry. I agree. Maybe the nation is even expressing its anger through nationalism, but it’s not that suddenly people are all getting nationalistic. They may be going inward, but they will open easily if there will be money, growth, egalitarianism, etc.
We’re talking about very serious topics, but you seem surprisingly optimistic. Are you optimistic?
Yes! I’m optimistic because Erdogan’s coalition will not survive if there is an honest, accurate election. The nation wants freedom.
Nick Hilden writes about the arts, travel, tech and health for numerous publications. He wanders the world constantly, and you can stalk his latest travels via Instagram or Twitter.
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