Snow

After twelve years in political exile in Germany a poet Ka returns to Istanbul for his mother's funeral and takes a commission to report on the municipal elections in Kars near the Russian border. There he discovers a dangerous atmosphere with tensions running high between the political Islamists and the 'enlightened pro-Western' Turkish military. The second half of the novel takes place over a three-day period. Following the set-piece military coup Pamuk brilliantly explores such themes as politics love ethics religion and poetry as we gradually discover the real truth concerning the poet and the snow covered old-world city of Kars.