THE POSTMODERN EXPRESSION OF POLITICAL ISSUES IN THE WORKS OF ORHAN PAMUK

Abstract

The renowned Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, in his novels Snow, My Name is Red, Nights of Plague, and The Black Book, artistically explores political, religious, and ideological issues through a postmodern lens. In these works, Pamuk offers a profound examination of the ideological divisions in modern Turkish society, the tensions between religious values and state policy, and the impact of socio-political forces on individual identity formation.
In Snow, Pamuk categorizes Turkey’s political dynamics into three main ideological groups: Islamists, proponents of state control over religion, and the left-wing opposition. The narrative adopts a polyphonic (multi-voiced) perspective rather than presenting a single truth, a key feature of post-modernism. The political events of the 1980s and 1990s are deconstructed, with the symbol of snow representing a veil of forgetfulness and purification that obscures past realities.
In My Name is Red, Pamuk foregrounds the issue of national identity and the resistance to Western influences, blending artistic and ideological conflict within a postmodern structure. In Nights of Plague, written during the pandemic, he openly critiques the tension between democracy and au-thoritarianism in the context of a public health crisis. Finally, The Black Book portrays the individual’s search for identity as a symbolic reflection of society’s broader quest for historical, cultural, and ideological self-understanding.