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Readings from modern classics, new works by leading writers and world literature

Readings from modern classics, new works by leading writers and literature from around the world

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Book at Bedtime: Reading Europe - Turkey: The Red-Haired Woman

Clare Higgins

Orhan Pamuk

Ekin Oklap

Jill Waters

Isobel Creed

Book at Bedtime: Reading Europe - Turkey: The Red-Haired Woman: Episode 10

Reading Europe - Turkey: The Red-Haired Woman

Episode 10

BBC Radio 4 - Book at Bedtime, Reading Europe - Turkey: The Red-Haired Woman, Episode 10

As the red-haired woman's son grows up, he begins to ask questions about his father.

As the red-haired woman's son grows up, he begins to ask questions about his father. She recalls how a sequence of events led her to being an unlikely saviour.

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 welldigger on the outskirts of Istanbul.

As the story of the well digging proceeds, 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.

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, accompanied by the sultry backdrop of contemporary Istanbul.


Written by Orhan Pamuk
Translated by Ekin Oklap
Read by Clare Higgins
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Producer: Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.

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Orhan Pamuk tells the apparently simple story of well-diggers on the outskirts of Istanbul

Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk explores father-son relationships through the story of a young man apprenticed to a well-digger on the outskirts of Istanbul. Read by Paul Hilton.

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