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Orhan Pamuk wrote a novel, The Museum of Innocence (2008), and built the real museum it describes in Istanbul's Çukurcuma district. In the book, Kemal collects objects tied to a lost love; the museum, opened in 2012, displays such objects as his collection, and every copy of the novel carries a ticket for one free visit.

Orhan Pamuk

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The story behind the card

Pamuk planned the novel and the museum together from the 1990s, collecting objects in Istanbul's junk and antique shops. The museum, in a 19th-century wooden house, has a display for each of the novel's 83 chapters, with more than a thousand objects in all: clocks, salt shakers, photographs, dresses. One wall holds 4,213 cigarette butts, those smoked by Füsun, the woman Kemal loves. Readers can bring the book and have its ticket stamped at the door. In 2014 the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. Pamuk has argued for small museums that tell the stories of individual people rather than the grand history of nations.

Türkçe oku
Orhan Pamuk, Masumiyet Müzesi (2008) adlı romanını yazdı ve romanda anlatılan müzeyi İstanbul'un Çukurcuma semtinde gerçekten kurdu. Romanda Kemal, kaybettiği bir aşka dair eşyaları biriktirir; 2012'de açılan müze bu eşyaları onun koleksiyonuymuş gibi sergiler. Romanın her nüshasında bir kişilik ücretsiz giriş bileti bulunur.

Pamuk romanla müzeyi 1990'lardan itibaren birlikte tasarladı ve eşyaları İstanbul'un eskicilerinden, antikacılarından topladı. 19. yüzyıldan kalma ahşap bir evdeki müzede, romanın 83 bölümünün her biri için bir vitrin ve toplam binden fazla nesne var: saatler, tuzluklar, fotoğraflar, elbiseler. Duvarlardan birinde, Kemal'in âşık olduğu Füsun'un içtiği 4.213 sigara izmariti duruyor. Okurlar kitabı yanlarında getirip içindeki bileti kapıda damgalatabiliyor. Müze 2014'te Avrupa Yılın Müzesi Ödülü'nü kazandı. Pamuk, ulusların büyük tarihini değil, tek tek insanların hikâyelerini anlatan küçük müzeleri savunur.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: The Museum of Innocence
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