A Strangeness in My Mind

A Strangeness in My Mind (Turkish: Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık) is a 2014 novel by Orhan Pamuk. It is the author's ninth novel. Knopf Doubleday published the English translation by Ekin Oklap in the U.S., while Faber & Faber published the English version in the UK.The story takes place in Istanbul, documenting the changes that the city underwent from 1969 to 2012. The main character is Mevlut, who originates from central Anatolia and arrives as a 12-year-old boy; the course of the novel tracks his adolescence and adulthood. Mevlut gets married in 1982, and finds a lack of success in making money.Elena Seymenliyska of The Daily Telegraph described the book as "a family saga that is as much an elegy to Istanbul as to its generations of adopted residents." Publishers Weekly stated that "what really stands out is Pamuk's treatment of Istanbul's evolution into a noisy, corrupt, and modernized city." Kirkus Reviews states that the author "celebrates the city’s vibrant traditional culture—and mourns its passing".The novel is almost 600 pages long. Dwight Garner of The New York Times wrote that the book has "the stretch of an epic but not the impact of one."