1 August 2012 Record at the Museum of Innocence
The Turkish daily Hürriyet Daily News reports that Orhan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence has already been visited by more than 11 thousand people since it opened its gates in April of this year. A large number of guests have come from Peru, Argentina, Korea, Hong Kong, Albania, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Romania. Let us recall that Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, one of the most important living writers in the world, will meet with his readers during this year’s edition of the Conrad Festival. The festival will begin on the 22nd of October and last until Sunday, the 28th of October.
Founded by Orhan Pamuk, the Museum of Innocence is a visual representation of the love story between Kemal and Füsun, the protagonists of his novel by the same title. Nearly two thousand visitors used the ticket attached to every copy of the book. In order to enter the museum, visitors need to bring along a copy of the novel and get the ticket page stamped. But the museum is an attraction even for those who have not read the book, an excellent illustration of 20th century Istanbul.
The author began to gather the collection before he finished working on the book. Once the novel was written, he added new exhibits and supplied the museum with an audio-guide. The Museum of Innocence was designed with the help of architects İhsan Bilgin, Cem Yücel, and Gregor Sunder Plassmann.
The Museum of Innocence is the first novel Pamuk wrote after winning the Nobel Prize for literature. The background to the plot, and at the same time one of the characters, of this masterly told love story is the writer's hometown, Istanbul.
