Cevdet Bey and His Sons

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature: Orhan Pamuk’s first novel, never before translated into English and based on his family’s story—a multi-generational epic that paints an elegant, realistic portrait of an affluent Turkish family in Istanbul in the early 20th century.

We begin in 1905 in the Nişantaşı neighborhood of Istanbul. At the heart of the story is Cevdet Bey, a self-made man who comes from humble roots. He inherits his family’s timber company and grows it into a significant business. He marries up by marrying the daughter of a pasha, something he is very proud of. He is looking ahead to the future of Turkey, to the growth of his business, to what he might become.

The story picks up in in the 1930s. Cevdet Bey has had three children: Osman, Refik and Ayşe. He has become quite successful and is now reaching the point where he is ready to hand over his business to his children, primarily Osman. After Cevdet Bey’s death, Osman takes on the family engineering business. Refik, however, is not at all interested, though he is nominally a partner as well; the very creature comforts that pleased his father and brought him happiness are no comfort at all to Refik. Ayşe, Cevdet Bey’s only daughter, struggles with her fate as a woman of this era: she will not be able to do much that she wants to do, other than play the piano, attend finishing school, and ultimately marry. The children, now adults, deal with a changing Turkey: the approach of the second world war, modernization, the Turkish movement and the tension between classes.

The final section of the book, set in 1970, focuses on Refik’s son Amhet, an aspiring artist looking ahead to the future, to what life means, and questioning Turkey’s role in the wider world.

In this debut novel, Pamuk paints offers a realistic, moving portrait of a nation on the brink of change and draws a unique line across the 20th century. Here we see the beginnings of one of our great writers – and the themes (and the city) that have preoccupied him throughout this career.