A sweeping, emotionally charged novel of the nature of romantic attachment and the strange allure of collecting — this is Orhan Pamuk’s greatest achievement.

It is Istanbul in 1975. Kemal is a rich and engaged man when he by chance encounters a long-lost relation, Fusun, a young shopgirl whose beauty stirs all the passion denied him in a society where sex outside marriage is taboo.

Fusun ends their liaison when she learns of Kemal’s engagement. But Kemal cannot forget her: for nine years he tries to change her mind, meanwhile stealing from her an odd assortment of personal items, which he collects and cherishes — a “museum of innocence” that he puts on display to tell the heartbreaking story of a love that shaped a life.

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Praise for Orhan Pamuk:
“Pamuk is taking the world we thought we knew and making it fresh and alive.”
— Pico Iyer, The New York Times

“He sees things that the rest of us prefer to overlook and tells the truth as he sees it.”
— San Francisco Chronicle

“A great and almost irresistibly beguiling … novelist.”
— The New York Times

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Visit Orhan Pamuk's website

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Map
Acknowledgments
 
1. The Happiest Moment of My Life
2. The Þanzelize Boutique
3. Distant Relations
4. Love at the Office
5. Fuaye
6. Füsun's Tears
7. The Merhamet Apartments
8. Turkey's First Fruit Soda
9. F
10. City Lights and Happiness
11. The Feast of the Sacrifice
12. Kissing on the Lips
13. Love, Courage, Modernity
14. Istanbul's Streets, Bridges, Hills, and Squares
15. A Few Unpalatable Anthropological Truths
16. Jealousy
17. My Whole Life Depends on You Now
18. Belkýs's Story
19. At the Funeral
20. Füsun's Two Conditions
21. My Father's Story: Pearl Earrings
22. The Hand of Rahmi Efendi
23. Silence
24. The Engagement Party
25. The Agony of Waiting
26. An Anatomical Chart of Love Pains
27. Don't Lean Back That Way, You Might Fall
28. The Consolation of Objects
29. By Now There Was Hardly a Moment When I Wasn't Thinking AboutHer
30. Füsun Doesn't Live Here Anymore
31. The Streets That Reminded Me of Her
32. The Shadows and Ghosts I Mistook for Füsun
33. Vulgar Distractions
34. Like a Dog in Outer Space
35. The First Seeds of My Collection
36. To Entertain a Small Hope That Might Allay My Heartache
37. The Empty House
38. The End-of-Summer Party
39. Confession
40. The Consolations of Life in a Yalý
41. Swimming on My Back
42. The Melancholy of Autumn
43. Cold and Lonely November Days
44. Fatih Hotel
45. A Holiday on Uludað
46. Is It Normal to Leave Your Fiancée in the Lurch?
47. My Father's Death
48. The Most Important Thing in Life Is to Be Happy
49. I Was Going to Ask Her to Marry Me
50. This Is the Last Time I'll Ever See Her!
51. Happiness Means Being Close to the One You Love, That's All
52. A Film About Life and Agony Should Be Sincere
53. An Indignant and Broken Heart Is of No Use to Anyone
54. Time
55. Come Again Tomorrow, and We Can Sit Together Again
56. Lemon Films Inc.
57. On Being Unable to Stand Up and Leave
58. Tombala
59. Getting Past the Censors
60. Evenings on the Bosphorus, at the Huzur Restaurant
61. To Look
62. To Help Pass the Time
63. The Gossip Column
64. The Fire on the Bosphorus
65. The Dogs
66. What Is This?
67. Cologne
68. 4,213 Cigarette Stubs
69. Sometimes
70. Broken Lives
71. You Hardly Ever Come Here Anymore, Kemal Bey
72. Life, Too, Is Just Like Love. . . .
73. Füsun's Driving License
74. Tarýk Bey
75. The Ýnci Patisserie
76. The Cinemas of Beyoðlu
77. The Grand Semiramis Hotel
78. Summer Rain
79. Journey to Another World
80. After the Accident
81. The Museum of Innocence
82. Collectors
83. Happiness
 
Index of Characters

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Orhan Pamuk is the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature. Amongst his other achievements in literature, his novel My Name Is Red won the 2003 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His work has been translated into more than fifty languages. Orhan Pamuk lives in Istanbul, in the building where he was raised.

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