East-West collisions

Orhan Pamuk’s latest novel, Nights of Plague, is set on a fictitious island called Mingheria, the twenty-ninth state of the Ottoman Empire, located in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. In 1901, following the order of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, a steamer carrying an eminent Ottoman delegation consisting of various Ottoman officials entrusted with mitigating political animosity between China’s Muslims and European powers sets sail for China.

Notable among the steamer’s passengers are Dr Bonkowski Pasha, the Ottoman Empire’s Chief Inspector of Public Health and Sanitation; his assistant Dr Ilias; Princess Pakize, the newlywed daughter of the deposed Sultan Murad V, and her husband, Prince Consort Doctor Nuri Bey; and Major Kâmil, the officer assigned by the palace to guard the delegation. Soon we learn that Dr Bonkowski Pasha and his assistant Dr Ilias are not headed to China and will disembark at Mingheria to investigate a possible outbreak of the plague.

Populated by Muslims and Orthodox Greeks, Mingheria functions as a microcosm of the Ottoman Empire in its ailing years. Immediately after his arrival, Dr Bonkowski learns that Mingheria’s governor, Sami Pasha, is reluctant to admit the existence of the plague on the island, attributing such claims to domestic and foreign enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Acting as a catalyst, the outbreak polarises the island’s political scene, with Greeks blaming Muslims, and Muslims blaming Greeks.