Nights Of Plague Orhan Pamuk Faber £20

Pamuk’s latest is set on the fictitious island province of Mingheria in the declining years of the Ottoman Empire, just as a virulent plague breaks out. Shunned and isolated, the island makes an opportunistic bid for independence. Covering Pamuk’s usual concerns – modernity versus tradition, East versus West – Mingheria becomes a microcosm of the break-up of empire and the founding of modern Turkey. Inventive and with a dizzying array of characters, it’s also overlong and occasionally self-indulgent.