Snow is a novel by Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, originally written in Turkish in 2002. Two years later in 2004, it was translated into English by Maureen Freely and published for an Anglophone audience.
The novel—which follows a Turkish poet named Ka as he returns from exile in Germany and travels to the rural town of Kars—is at once satirical, detached, and empathetic with the characters whose lives it depicts. Ka is ostensibly in town to write about the suicide of many young girls who were banned from wearing their religious headscarves in secular, government-run schools, but he is really there to rediscover shattered fragments of his own youth and reconnect with a woman he loves, Ipek. As such, Ka's story gives Pamuk the chance to explore themes as disparate as the cultural, religious, and political divide between the East and West (broadly construed); feminism; the link between artistic imagination and harsh reality; and the complex, nuanced nature of Turkish identity. At the same time that he guides us through these explorations, however, he cautions us to reject simplistic stereotypes and even interrogates his own perspective as a Westernized author (who, in a very postmodern twist, appears himself in the story as a third-person narrator) that retells the stories of Ka's life in Kars. As such, though Snow is a "political" novel, it is first and foremost about rejecting simplicity, painting both sides of a human crisis and showing us both the light and dark in each relevant party.
Though Pamuk has claimed in interviews that he believes politics is fundamentally destructive to the process of artistic creation, he felt the need to write Snow on account of perceived government attacks on democracy, social liberties, and the international reputation of the Turkish state. As such, when he first finished the novel, he thought about first consulting a lawyer before its publication to avoid any charges of sedition and to avoid rousing negative public sentiment. His friends and colleagues, however, told him that his already established international fame would prevent the government (which wanted to look towards the global, and particularly Western, stage moving forward) from censoring his work. Even so, when the book was first printed, the publisher showed it to a lawyer and kept some copies hidden just in case of potential backlash within Turkey. Surprisingly, however, the backlash was relatively calm, and the majority of Turks lauded the work and discussed the book intently, both praising its strengths while also pointing out its shortcomings from their own perspectives.
On an international scale, too, the book made quite a splash. On the award circuit, the novel was the recipient of the 2005 Prix Médicis étranger and the 2006 Prix Méditerranée Étranger. American critics were at once taken aback by the panoramic and ambivalent nature of Pamuk's prose, yet also stunned by its accessibility and insight into a very nuanced and tragic conflict. John Updike, for example, commented on the surprising contemporaneity of the novel and the courage it must have taken for Pamuk to write a novel that drives through to the heart of modern political issues in a country where freedom of speech is not a guarantee. The Economist, meanwhile, praised the novel's central philosophy that religious and economic conflicts lack simple solutions and defy stereotypes, while also calling Pamuk's look into the desolate conditions of Kars a bit intense. Even so, Snow's impact on global literature remains clear and distinct, and the novel is considered among Pamuk's masterpieces, along with My Name is Red and The Black Book.
