In an old mansion in Cennethisar, a former fishing village near Istanbul, a widow, Fatma, awaits the annual summer visit of her grandchildren. She has lived in the village for decades, ever since her husband, an idealistic young doctor, ran afoul of the sultan’s grand vizier and arrived to serve the poor fishermen. Now mostly bedridden, she is attended by her constant servant Recep, a dwarf—and the doctor’s illegitimate son. But it is Recep’s nephew Hassan, a high-school dropout latelty fallen in with right-wing nationalists, who will draw the family into Turkey’s century-long struggle for modernity.
Never before published in English. Silent House is Orhan Pamuk’ second novel.