Nights of Plague

A novel

By: Orhan Pamuk, Ekin Oklap - translator

Narrated by: Amira Ghazalla

From the the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature: Part detective story, part historical epic—a bold and brilliant novel that imagines a plague ravaging a fictional island in the Ottoman Empire.

It is April 1900, in the Levant, on the imaginary island of Mingheria—the twenty-ninth state of the Ottoman Empire—located in the eastern Mediterranean between Crete and Cyprus. Half the population is Muslim, the other half are Orthodox Greeks, and tension is high between the two. When a plague arrives—brought either by Muslim pilgrims returning from the Mecca or by merchant vessels coming from Alexandria—the island revolts.

To stop the epidemic, the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II sends his most accomplished quarantine expert to the island—an Orthodox Christian. Some of the Muslims, including followers of a popular religious sect and its leader Sheikh Hamdullah, refuse to take precautions or respect the quarantine. And then a murder occurs.

As the plague continues its rapid spread, the Sultan sends a second doctor to the island, this time a Muslim, and strict quarantine measures are declared. But the incompetence of the island’s governor and local administration and the people’s refusal to respect the bans doom the quarantine to failure, and the death count continues to rise. Faced with the danger that the plague might spread to the West and to Istanbul, the Sultan bows to international pressure and allows foreign and Ottoman warships to blockade the island. Now the people of Mingheria are on their own, and they must find a way to defeat the plague themselves.

Steeped in history and rife with suspense, Nights of Plague is an epic story set more than one hundred years ago, with themes that feel remarkably contemporary.

The way Pamuk weaves history and fiction with clear allegories to modern times and deep philosophical questions

This epic novel takes you through a century of worlds history linking it to the history of fictional island of Mangaria while you can see clear allegories to the way the epidemic was handled and modern day turkey.

Personally I loved the narration, albeit being over excited at times but I admired how the narrator made sure to pronounce the names of people and places accurately.

Regarding some reviews that were disappointed by the island being fictional, this is a novel, not a history book. You will be really disappointed to know that Hamlet wasn’t a real prince🤣

Excellent and Historical

Take the time to visit the elements of history unfolding in real time: circumstances (the plague for heavens sake), people in time and place, and human interactions. And that narrator is exemplary.

TOO Long!!!

Too LONG!!!!! The 1st half was good but there is a big chunk half way through that was unnecessary & un-interesting.

That 1/4th of the book felt like i was reading someone's writing assignment. You know where they make you create a fictional world (past/present/future) and give all the characters backgrounds, families, histories (birth to death)...i lost interest during that section (on Audio book around chapter 51-6?) (you'll see)...i felt like i was waisting my time reading a history of this non-existing island..I almost stoped reading (& i may have if this were not a book club book) but the last few chapters got more interesting. So i recommend trying to stick it out until the end.

However, i can't say i would recommend this book. It has some interesting information in it but i hope that information is easily accessible somewhere else or in a much shorter source. This book took way too much time out of my life.

Contemporary History

Very interesting insight in the history of the one part of the world with many contemporary connotations.
The only reason for only four stars is almost impossibly high standard that Orhan Pamuk established with his previous works.

Wonderful

This is an allegory, like Camus The Plague,
Plague is a magnifying glass for how societies work under pressure. Pamuk is clearly describing contemporaneous
events through a metaphor.