The Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk explores the complex layers of father-son relationships through the apparently simple story of a young man apprenticed to a well-digger on the outskirts of Istanbul.

With this vivid image of digging towards the centre of the earth at the heart of the story, he brings together eastern and western myths and legends to look at what is really meant by authority and rebellion. Can anyone ever escape their fate?

Cem Çelik is a "little gentleman", the son of a leftist Istanbul pharmacist whose politics take precedence over parenthood. During one of his father's lengthy and regular disappearances, 16 year-old Cem gives up his holiday job guarding his uncle's orchard and apprentices himself to a master well-digger, Mahmut. They set about digging a well to provide water for a local businessman's factory.

Heraclitus said that truth lies at the bottom of a well. The wells of Pamuk's Turkey are something quite sinister - here, guilt and shame lurk in the darkness, forever threatening to come spewing up into the light. The novel turns on Cem's encounter with the red-haired woman of the title and a subsequent act by the well that stains the rest of his life.

As Cem accepts the warm but irascible Mahmut as a surrogate father, and Mahmut slowly begins to regard Cem with a fatherly affection, the storytelling begins. First Cem listens intently to Mahmut's tales, then is himself invited to speak.

Myth and folklore pervade the novel, and throw the events of Cem's life into sharp focus, against the backdrop of the ever expanding 21st century Istanbul.

Translated by Ekin Oklap

Omnibus of the first five of ten parts.

Read by Paul Hilton

Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed.

Producer: Jill Waters

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in January 2018. Show less