tar columnist Jelal Salik, a principal character of Pamuk's Kara Kitap (1990; The Black Book 1993), "never stir[s] outside of Istanbul" (83). Not merely an "urbanite," he is, irremediably, an Istanbulite (in much the same way as the Woody Allen persona of Allen's middle period films-most notably, Manhattan-is a Manhattanite), a curious tidal-pool creature, open to the flows of the larger world's influences but always experiencing these in relation to a very specific immediate environment. To suggest Jelal as a Pamuk persona would be a misreading, and yet the character, along with certain others, clearly serves to present an aspect of the authorial personality. Born in Istanbul in 1952, educated there, still living there, Pamuk is very much an Istanbulite and one, like his Jelal, who has made it his business to write his city. In so doing, Pamuk portrays an extremely localized creative consciousness. With respect to the contemporary critical and theoretical concerns of Anglophone scholarship in the humanities, this localization of imagination enables a re-evaluation of the understanding of East-West relations. Pamuk has emphasized the specific perspectives of his place, noting that his home is on the European side of the Bosphorus, but from his window he looks out, across the narrow band of water, on Asia. Similarly, he has celebrated the view from the middle of Bosphorus Bridge, the bridge between the two continents, noting that it situates the viewer neither in Europe nor Asia, yet connects him with both-a unique perspective that Istanbul brings to Turkish culture (Pamuk, "Turkey"). This envisioning of the Istanbulite's particular experience of contemporary cultural actuality is amply represented in the fictions making up the core of Pamuk's career to date. Beyaz Kale (1985; The White Castle 1990), which first established Pamuk as a writer of international importance, and the
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