“Nights of Plague”
By Orhan Pamuk
Knopf, 704 pages

“Nights of Plague,” the latest doorstopper from Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s sole Nobel laureate to date, is what the late Northrop Frye would call an “anatomy” — rather than attempting to conjure the psychological nuance of the realist novel, it tells its stories through the quasi-encyclopedic treatment of a subject, in this case, a fictional Mediterranean island. Anatomies are high-wire acts; the greatest example, “Moby-Dick,” tends to be more invoked than read. While Mr. Pamuk cannot be said to have made an easy entry in the genre, “Nights of Plague” has significant charms.

The book, purportedly composed from material drawn from the personal papers of the fictional Princess Pakize, daughter of the deposed sultan Murad V and niece of Abdülhamid II, addresses an outbreak of bubonic plague on the fictional island of Mingheria in 1901. After the assassination of Bonkowski Pasha, the top Ottoman infectious disease specialist, Pakize and her husband, Nuri, must grapple with obstructionist government officials and the divisions cleaving Mingherian society to find the killer and stop the plague.

If this sounds like a heavy-handed COVID allegory, it’s because it is. Bonkowski Pasha, before his untimely decease, delivers exhortations to the Mingherian governor about the importance of prompt and total quarantine measures, the cooperation of Christian and Muslim populations, the inadequacies of the backward population’s own medical expertise. “The populace must be allowed to worry, shopkeepers must face the fear of death, if they are to follow quarantine measures willingly once they are introduced,” Bonkowski Pasha tells the governor of Mingheria. Not exactly subtle stuff.

If characters and dialogue tend to be vehicles for Mr. Pamuk’s own political and historical fixations, “Nights of Plague” nevertheless has its strengths. Mr. Pamuk takes great care on the description of the eastern Mediterranean’s landscapes and the material culture and politics of the late Ottoman period; the reader almost wishes he had devoted his attention to a nonfiction treatment of the period. Imperial collapse, secret police, the triumphs and failures of pluralistic societies, the confrontation of religion, especially Islam, with the modern world — the rule of the late sultans certainly has much to offer.

This is to say that the most anatomy-like portions of “Nights of Plague” are the most compelling. The characters are wooden, the dialogue stilted, and the plot is not up to the heft of the book; but the long digressions on Mingheria’s fictional history, cunningly interwoven with the real story of the former territories of the Ottoman Empire, are so captivating that a reader of the right frame of mind doesn’t mind the rest. A sharper editor might have suggested Mr. Pamuk cut the more conventionally novelistic material in favor of more pseudo-history, or a shorter page count — but it is difficult to stand up to a Nobel winner.

It is as if the “Zembla” sections of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Pale Fire,” which render an account of a fictional kingdom through which the narrator (and Nabokov himself) reckons with the loss of his tsarist Russian homeland, were expanded to the length of “War and Peace,” which provides the epigraph for Mr. Pamuk’s book. One might wish for a more conventionally moving, “realist” component to “Nights of Plague” — “Pale Fire” again comes to mind, this time as a foil — but this desire should not obscure the book’s significant virtues.

Mr. Pamuk’s political differences with the currently prevailing strain of Turkish nationalism, particularly his frankness about the Armenian genocide and the Kurdish question, have made him something of a Western cause celebre. This sort of fame, however, threatens to miss his virtues as a writer: a cleverness for composition, a knack for laying out Turkish history’s complications, a talent for description. “Nights of Plague” displays his full powers.

It’s 1901 and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire has sent two quarantine doctors to Mingheria, the pearl of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, an island off the coast of Turkey predominantly occupied by Muslims. There are 273 qualified civilian doctors in the Empire and most are Greek Orthodox. Muslims are reluctant to permit the doctors entrance into their homes and frequently deny the presence of sickness. The two groups are soon polarized. Conflict erupts and Bonkowki Pasha, one of the doctors, is murdered. He firmly believes in distancing, isolation and quarantine procedures, in addition to hunting down rats, and he had the authority to exercise that.

Death rates ranged from five to six a day yet people who were potentially infected continue to wander around freely in spite of Dr Nuri reminding them that there was no vaccine against it yet. Lysol had been invented and was used liberally. Over a hundred years ago and the treatment hasn’t advanced much since then, though we do have a vaccine now.

Some families choose to keep their children home from school. One to two boats a day serve the island and desperate islanders queue up to snare a berth. Interestingly, the term quarantine comes from Italian for “forty days,” the isolation period to keep the sickness from spreading to others. “Quarantine is the art of educating the public in spite of itself, and of teaching it the skill of self-preservation.”

I would have enjoyed this book more if it had been shorter. The description of the beautiful island of pink rock was repeatedly described, repeatedly. I would have preferred less. Interesting book though.

3 Stars

This is my first book by this Turkish, Nobel Prize-winning writer, so I don’t know if it’s representative of his work, but I found it somewhat tedious.

The setting is 1901 on the fictional Eastern Mediterranean island of Mingheria which is part of the Ottoman Empire. A plague has broken out so a quarantine expert, Bonkowski Pasha, is sent to bring the outbreak to an end. He is murdered shortly after arrival, so the Sultan sends his niece, Princess Pakize, daughter of the brother he deposed, and her husband, Dr. Nuri, to control the spread of the plague and to discover the identity of Bonkowski Pasha’s murderer. What follows is a detailed description of attempts to stop the plague and the social and political upheaval resulting from those attempts.

In a preface, the supposed author claims that she is writing “both a historical novel and a history written in the form of a novel.” She has access to letters written by Princess Pakize during her time on Mingheria, but, though the novel gives the princess’s perspective of events, that of other characters is also given: the governor of the island, Sami Pasha; Bonkowski Pasha; Dr. Nuri; the leader of her security detail, Major Kâmil; and Sheikh Hamdullah, among others.

What is noteworthy is the world-building. Readers cannot but be convinced that Mingheria exists because we are told about its history, geography, economics, and politics. The island’s ethnic (Greek, Turkish, Mingherian) and religious (Muslim, Orthodox Christian) groups are detailed. Businesses, buildings, and streets in the capital of Arkaz are described.

The effects of the plague on the island’s residents are detailed but so are the measures taken to control its spread. What I found especially interesting is that many of those measures are identical to those we recently faced with our own pandemic: distancing, isolation, quarantine, alcohol-based disinfectants, closing businesses, suspending religious gatherings, restricting the size of gatherings, ventilation, curfews, and masking. Dr. Nuri admits “how frighteningly vague the medical community’s understanding of the plague was.”

The concerns expressed read like those we heard during Covid: “There were also people who were exposed to the microbe that didn’t fall ill or even realize they had it” and “the hospitals will run out of beds, and there won’t be enough doctors to deal with the sick” and shops “stationed someone at their door to spray disinfectant” and “plague victims might cough in your face at any moment and infect you too” and ever-changing “new measures were added every day” and “’Do you think the plague can be passed through food?’ and “the fear of the disease meant that nobody was really greeting and embracing each other” and “many other diseases had similar symptoms” and “Personal bonds had weakened, friendships had suffered” and “need to disinfect or sanitize things like paper, letters, and books” and whether the disease will disappear with the arrival of a new season.

The reactions of the people to the measures are also identical to those seen in the last couple of years. Some worry about the effect of closures on their businesses, “complaining that quarantine was damaging their profits”; some “mothers and fathers could not stay at home to look after [children]”; and “some shopkeepers and bakers had taken to stockpiling goods, while others were hiking up their prices.” Some people follow the rules, “never left their homes anymore, and wouldn’t come in for work,” while others are plague deniers who continue to live as normal. Some flout the rules. Some believe they will be immune if they carry prayer sheets or wear amulets or perform certain rituals. There are rumours and conspiracy theories about the origins of the plague; the doctors who come to the island to help are accused of bringing the plague with them. Politicians, medical professionals, and citizens disagree about what measures need to be taken, and protests against plague measures are held. People who flee the city to a rural region “were quickly driven away by locals who accused them of having the plague.” Human nature seems not to have changed, and we seem not to have learned from history.

At 700+ pages, this is a lengthy book. Its slow pace meant I often struggled to maintain interest. There is a great deal of telling, as opposed to showing, and many digressions. More than once the author makes comments like “Our readers must not think that we are straying too far from our story if we too take a moment now to examine . . .” and has characters deliver “a needlessly elaborate disquisition.” Irrelevant information is included. For instance, when the governor’s armoured landau is first described, do we really need to know that “he had commissioned Bald Kudret, Arkaz’s most famous blacksmith to make the required sheets of armor”? Do we have to be told about a bee that flies into the landau on one trip? What is the purpose of being told about the ships that blockade the harbour: “the French Amiral Baudin, launched in 1883, was one hundred meters long; the British HMS Prince George, launched in 1895, was excellent in artillery”? Do we have to know that a judge “had long, slender fingers, and delicate handwriting”? There is such a thing as too much information!

There is a lot of needless repetition. Almost every time Dr. Nuri appears, his complete title is given: Prince Consort Doctor Nuri. Another character’s felt hat is mentioned 25 times. Sentences are sometimes overly long: “The judge (and former kadı) who would have ordinarily conducted the trial was Muzaffer Effendi, sent from Istanbul to handle important cases involving murder, serious injury, the abduction of young women for marriage, and blood feuds, without these having to be referred to the courts in the Empire’s capital, but Muzaffer Effendi was currently in the Maiden’s Tower, having been sent there by rowboat in the middle of the night along with the insufficiently revolutionary mayor of Teselli, Rahmetullah Effendi, so instead Sami Pasha had the elderly Christofi Effendi of the rich Yannisgiorgis family, whom he knew through the French consul, and who happened to be the only person on the island who’d studied law in Europe (specifically in Paris), brought to the former State Hall and current Ministerial Headquarters in his armored landau, instructing him upon his arrival to kindly produce a judgment ‘in the European style.’” I count 148 words in that one sentence.

The book is critical of politicians of every stripe. The governor pays for his landau “with money taken from the municipality’s eternally underfunded coffers”; another leader, rather than focusing on the plague, is concerned “to see this own likeness and the landscapes of Mingheria reproduced on these postage stamps” and “fantasizing about all the new names he was going to give these places”; and another “spent more time discussing [a predecessor’s] funeral arrangements, the future of the Halifiye sect and lodge, and the emblems of the Queen.” There is certainly a criticism of modern Turkey: “We should also note that the custom of gunning journalists and writers down on the street with the tacit backing of the state – a tradition that has now persisted for more than a hundred years – was first born under the new regime of ‘freedom.’” (There is no doubt that the plague also serves as a metaphor for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.)

The book has 79 chapters and an overlong epilogue. (I found it rather ironic that in Chapter 56, only two-thirds of the way through the book, the author states, “as we approach the end of our novel-cum-history, I suppose I should finally reveal . . . “) I finished it only because I felt obligated to do so since I received a galley from the publisher in return for a review. It is too long and dense and perhaps, for me, too much a reminder of the Covid pandemic which has not yet ended.

From the opening page you know why Mr. Pamuk was a recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. The writing is exquisite and the storytelling keeps you turning the pages. The novel was published in Turkish just as the world went into lockdown so it makes it even more fascianting that you have a novel about a plague and how people react to lockdowns during the Ottaman Empire. The novel is part mystery and part history novel but more importantly coming in at over 700 pages it keeps you turning the pages. As I was reading it, I felt like I was living their history (yes, history repeats itself!) The characters are well developed even thought there are many of them. You have to read this novel at a leisurely pace because there is so much packed in it. This novel will definetly be in my top 10 of 2022. Thank you #netgalley and #knopf for the advance read. I will be buying a copy to have in my library. That's how good it is.

This one my first Orhan Pamuk novel and I am thinking it may have not been the best one to start with. The story of a doctor sent to a small island by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to curb an plague epidemic and encounters politics and societal breakdown read a bit too much like a text book. The tone was dry and it was hard to care about the characters. The various historical tangents were too many and detracted greatly from the story. Many folks may like this one, it just wasn't for me. Thanks NetGalley for the chance to read and review this book!

This rewards the patient - and Pamuk's fans. He was amazingly prescient to have written a novel about a plague which kills many, divides families, causes political upheaval, and changes the landscape for the people of Mingheria, a fictional island in the Ottoman Empire. There's no way to synopsize this but know the storytelling sweeps from place to place within the Empire and sees major change for Mingheria. Sometimes it is more work to read than you might want but Pamuk has made his points. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For his fans and fans of literary epics.

It’s hard to believe that Orhan Pamuk began writing this book way before Covid hit, but it’s true. The story begins in 1901 during Ottoman times on the fictional island of Mingeria. A microcosm of the real Ottoman Empire, the island is primarily populated by Turkish Muslims and Greek Orthodox Christians. As a bubonic plague arrives on the island, it’s kept quiet for fear of creating widespread panic. Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II attempts to manage the plague from afar by sending his royal chemist, who is mysteriously murdered. Dispatched next is Doctor Nuri, husband of the sultan’s niece Princess Pakize and the princess herself. The horrors of the plague and attempts to enforce quarantine measures unleash plenty, and Pamuk deftly brings all this to the forefront. While on the surface the book is about the plague, Pamuk has layered the book with so much more. There’s parallels between the waning days of the Ottoman Empire and present day, plague or not - religious and ethnic conflict, nationalism, quarantine being overly used to restrict and monitor movement, the plague being used as an excuse for subversive motives. Know that Pamuk treads delicately with his writing - that’s so much he conveys in the undercurrents that run throughout the book. Pamuk is not one for light details. No, he paints sometimes excruciating pictures of the time or situations, the descriptions of streets, neighborhoods, people, family members, the whole parade of island people, the person, city hall, you name it. It’s like he wants to doubly make sure you get the scene, and then he’ll show you again! For those who’ve read other Pamuk books, you’re probably used to it, for those who’ve never read his books before, beware. After all, the book is more than 700 plus pages. But I have a soft spot for Turkey, and despite it’s length and sometimes over the top descriptions, I enjoyed this historical fiction Pamuk-ish style and all. My advice: Take it slow and savor the setting and the storyline, look for parallels in the old world and today, and enjoy the parts that Mina Mingher shares post 1901. I’m so appreciative of this book being translated into English. Many thanks to the author, translator, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Fantastic read! Such a great view into one of the pandemics of old. Fascinating to read about pharmacist and the advent of epidemiology. Well worth a read!

i'm still reading the Night of the Plague and loving but Orhan Pamuk is one of my favourite writer and knew what to expect.
It's a sort of door stopper and one of his longest book. Not a good book to approach a complex, multilayered, and riveting authors.
This is not an average historical fiction and there's also another layer to be discovered and something hidden in the story
There's a lot of history on the background- There's the twilight of the Ottoman empire and there's a fascinating and fictional island.
I'm still reading and loving what I'm reading. One piece of advice: if you want to start reading Pamuk try "My Name is Red" or "Istanbul: Memories and the City"
I will be back and add something to this review.
Even if it's one of the best book of 2022 for me I would recommend if you love literary historical fiction or you already read something by this author.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I am embarrassed to admit that this is my first Orhan Pamuk book, about whom I've head amazing things for many years, and I already know it will not be my last. This story, about a plague that not only endangers the lives of many but also divides a society, as politics and religion get in the way of an effective response. It feels all too relevant today, in a way that made the reading intensely uncomfortable at times. A dense and challenging read that rewards the effort expended on it.

“Nights of Plague” – Orhan Pamuk (translated from Turkish by Ekin Oklap)

Set on the fictional Mediterranean island of Mingheria during the last few years of the Ottoman Empire, “Nights of Plague” charts the history of this fictional melting pot of cultures, a microcosm of the empire itself, an island of various religions and peoples living side by side in fragile equilibrium. When an outbreak of plague forces the island into lockdown, religious and nationalistic pressures bubble up to the surface, leading to violence and political scheming as a new future is created for the island.

On paper, this book sounded fantastic, but the experience was not one I can recommend. I’ll start with a few positives, though. The level of world-building is supreme – everything about Mingheria feels real and believable, from its society to language and the rhythms of daily life. I also like how certain aspects of the plague reflect our own feelings about how 2020 was handled, the need for governments to act quickly leading to decisions that can shape history in unexpected ways, the conflict of freedom versus security – I appreciated these.

Now the negatives. This book is glacially slow – I think it’s 700 pages in print, felt twice that, there is no point where the pace increases, even in parts where there are meant to be murder mysteries and romance. Neither of these aspects worked for me because every character blends together, with no personalities shining at any moment, to the point where I almost think that Pamuk is making an argument about history itself, that big personalities don’t shape the world, and that leaders flow with the waters of time rather than alter its course. That could also be seen as a swipe at current trends in Turkey, but what do I know?

This could have been something truly special, and maybe it will appeal to someone with more knowledge of the Ottoman Empire, but I can’t help but compare it to “The Bridge Over the River Drina” by Ivo Andric, a book which tackles similar ideas in many ways, but does so far more successfully, in my opinion. If you want to delve into Pamuk (he won the Nobel Prize, so it’s understandable), “My Name is Red” or “Snow” are better starting points.

I received a free ARC copy of this book from @netgalley and @knopfdoubleday in exchange for an honest review, and they got one haha.

Comments appreciated 😊

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for an advanced copy of this novel on a illness, consequences, religion, love and murder.

Too soon, is a phrase used by people who want to not think of something painful, or for politicians not to have their ineffectiveness pointed out to them as the same problems keep arising. Sometimes fiction can be too soon. A book about a plague on an island who decide to treat the illness based on their own ideas and research, while ignoring sound medical advice. That is a very big too soon for a lot of readers. Thankfully we have writers who are brave enough to go there is never too soon, just how soon can we face these troubles, and make sure they never happen again. Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Noble Prize in Literature, and translated by Ekin Oklap is a book about sickness, health, murder, politics and how all these can make an ongoing tragedy far worse.

The time is 1900 in the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan has sent his niece and her new husband a doctor of infectious diseases, to China as part of a new mission and fact finding trip and also to keep her far away from the court after arresting her father. Their ship stops at the island of Mingheria, where the population is divided between Muslim and Orthodox Greeks. Tensions are usually high, but are now plague has come to the island, and both blame the other for causing it. The Sultans sends his best doctor to help with quarantine, but being a Orthodox Christian, is ignored by half the population, and a murder is committed that begins to split the island even worse. After another doctor, the Sultan's niece's husband tries to get another quarantine going, things decay even further leaving the Sultan no choice but to begin a naval blockade, leaving the island to fend for itself.

The book is very big, with a lot of characters, and a lot of subplots. Corrupt government, ignorant people declaring on health issues, a murder mystery, a medical mystery, the role of women, the role of religion, world affairs. Pamuk does a good job in keeping the story going, but the writing style and the distance he keeps from the characters might be a little hard to adjust too, as is the scholarly way in which he sometimes writes. Also the subject matter, a plague and how government and religion get in the way of dealing with it, might not be the escapist fiction that people want these days. However this is a big, sprawling book that does work, once the reader gives it a chance. The history is very intriguing, the characters, even the villains have a motivation for what they do, and the writing is very fluid, and in some places quite beautiful.

There is a lot going on in the book, I'll be the first to admit that. However anyone with interest in Pamuk's other works, or enjoy historical fiction, or just want something to read something huge that will absorb their interest from what is going on in the world, or get through snow storms in winter, will not be disappointed. To paraphase the Smiths maybe Too Soon is Now.

This is a rich historical novel that will delight new and old fans!. A eerie relevant story from this century and the last

It was probably not the time for me to read a book about a pandemic and how it is handled on a fictional island in the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago.
I usually like Pamuk a lot and it doesn't bother me that his books usually exceed 500 pages, but this time it was tiring to move through the colors, smells, and endless number of characters. As usual an epic fresco, but this time I struggled to read this metaphor of the present, perhaps because it is precisely the actuality that is extremely tiring.

Probabilmente non era il momento per me, di leggere un libro che parla di una pandemia e di come viene gestita in un'immaginaria isola dell'impero ottomano di 100 anni fa.
A me di solito Pamuk piace molto e non mi disturba il fatto che i suoi libri di solito superino le 500 pagine, ma stavolta é stato faticoso muoversi tra i colori, gli odori e l'infinito numero di personaggi. Come al solito un affresco epico, ma stavolta ho fatto fatica a leggere questa metafora del presente, forse perché é proprio l'attualitá ad essere estremamente faticosa.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

Not a review because I didn't finish. Just sharing why it didn't work for me.

Two reasons I downloaded this book: the author, of course (it's my first book by the author) & the setting. I find Turkey fascinating.

But I struggled to read this.
I couldn't connect with the writing style. To me, it seemed too text book type. Too much telling plus too slow paced.

I guess I'm not the right reader for this one. Thank you for the copy and sorry I couldn't finish.

3.5 stars

"Nights of Plague" has a fascinating premise, but, like many or Orhan Pamuk's novels, was hard for. me to get through.

First of all, the premise. Set in 1901 on an imaginary island, the 29th state of the Ottoman Empire, plague has erupted. The Sultan sends his top quarantine doctor, a Polish Catholic, to the island. He recently ridded Smyrna of plague through effective quarantine procedures, but Mingheria is going to be another story. Insanely corrupt and disorganized, fraught with internecine squabbles, he barely get to the place and start to get things in order when he is murdered. The Sultan calls his niece and her doctor husband back from a trip to China to manage the outbreak. The niece is the daughter of the brother he deposed, and the trip to China is a ruse to get her as far out of the way as possible. The hope is that a Muslim doctor will encourage citizens to quarantine. But the population is Greek Orthodox and Christian as well as Muslim, and, well, you can probably guess.

Of course Pahmuk is a remarkable writer, but this novel did not lift this reader up and carry her on a wave of interest for the entire length of the book. It's a murder mystery, a political thriller and a historical gem, so why is it so hard to get through?

This book has a lot to offer and I look forward to reading the opinions of other English language readers.

Overall I really liked reading this book. It's quite dense, but the world-building that Pamuk does is, as always, very good. I liked the exploration of medical info and possible preventions that could have been done.

Not for me. Too long, too boring, too much. I enjoy historical fiction on occasion but I need something with a bit more zip.

Gosh, I honestly struggle with this review as I don´t have much of a good to say and I don't want to offend anyone, especially after the recent attack on Salman Rushdie.
I had never read anything by Orhan Pamuk before and hoped that this book could be a good start. Well... not really. First of all, this feels more like a dissertation on history, incredibly detailed, it actually overwhelms. Secondly, the characters are flat and I couldn't connect with any of them. And finally, this book is not about the plague outbreak, not about people who try to fight the danger off, but about politics and how nationalistic tendencies along with religious identity can quickly grow and escalate to a point where it can realistically endanger the most powerful empires. The thing is, Pamuk doesn´t see this as something dangerous. If anything, he seems to be encouraging local disputes based on religion and ethnic identity and steering toward an open conflict.
He is writing about the Ottoman Empire and its past with such a longing, passion, and melancholy that it´s clear that he wants it back. Yet there is not a word about the terrible war crimes that the Ottoman empire committed, and then Turkey just after the fall of the Empire when they murdered over a million of Pontic people.
On top of that Pamuk gives us a glimpse into Islamic religion and culture. Pamuk praises Islamic customs, of which many stands in exact opposition to the modern world.
I repeat again - I do not intend to offend anyone, these are my personal feelings.
This is how freedom ends...

Pamuk's latest translation from Turkish into English, Nights of Plague (coming out October 4th, 2022) is an epic both historical and contemporary. I need not remind anyone reading this that we are still, as a global community, navigating the Covid-19 pandemic (and monkey pox is making rounds again as well!) The timing must be viewed as deliberate; Pamuk's commentary embedded within this novel can only be seen as prescient or proof of an uncanny insight into the human psyche as it relates to existential threat.

In short, Nights of Plague is epic.

The stories that unfolds within its pages are reminiscent of epic prose as well. Pamuk's novel is spun around a royal Ottoman princess, Pakize and her husband, Prince Consort and medical doctor, Nuri; however, the tale is more accurately about the unravelling of a community and its denizens as they face possible annihilation and suffering from a breakout of plague. The locale of this event is a fictitious island, Mingheria, an outpost of the Ottoman empire that reflects the empire as a whole: multicultural in its constitution with ancient and new settlers of Greek, Muslim, Eastern European, African, Christian, and Colonial European descent; in precarious harmony with the multiple discordant voices, needs, and ambitions of politicians, medical professionals, ordinary citizens, foreign heads of state and their ambassadors, Ottoman royals, and immigrants; and gorgeous and complex in its rich history. Mingheria is a plague-beset limb of an empire popularly described as "the sick man."

Pamuk's tale of Mingheria does not confine itself to the accounts of elite royals, though it is ostensibly based on recently unearthed archival records and it is told as a historical monograph, through the eyes and pen of one of Princess Pakize's descendants. Pamuk regales the reader with stories of its other denizens too: its merchants and common folk. There is the security guard of the local prison and the tale of him and his family as they struggle to survive and live their lives in the wake of plague and death. There are the doctors who work to eradicate the plague, demand quarantines. There is the governor too, all too human in his own ambition and fear.

Nights of Plague is about Mingheria and its people, how their present fears and dilemma(s) are shaped by their history of ethnic division and unity, religious and ideological differences, their universal humanity. They react based on their subjective desires, but are also creatures of their communities, their actions are shaped by the expectations of those around them, their enemies, their allies.

Our unknown narrator writes as a historian might do, providing context where necessary, but imbues the academic narrative with a novelist's attention to texture, aroma, and the sensation of place. Mingheria is as real as the Ottoman Empire can be to a modern reader: the spicy, heady fragrance of a time and place that no longer exists is palpable.

Nights of Plague is a more gorgeous, more exotic -- and historical -- reflection of our own contemporary experience with Covid-19. The arguments between medical professionals, politicians, and the citizenry in this novel are all too familiar to anyone who has been watching the news for the past three years. The heated debates, the refusals to quarantine, the seeming indifference of the populace to the threat of death and suffering might make a reader feel queasy. The Lacanian recognition is jarring. But perhaps, for all of us, this is a necessary cognitive event in order to reconcile the past with the present and future. Pamuk delivers that lesson with poetic grace in Nights of Plague.