I am reading Snow by Orhan Pamuk. I was introduced to it in my class with Mindy when she handed out his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, which was excerpted in The New Yorker.  I was haunted by the piece as he spoke of his recently deceased father and his memories reminded me of my own–images, keepsakes, mannerisms, lost dreams.

Snow takes place in Turkey and a bit in Germany. It is a story of intrigue and poetry.  It’s a window in to the country–beyond the typical tourist overview.

As an aside, I am fascinated by the migration of Turkish people to Germany.  Of course, as we know, I am interested in diaspora.

Berlin is awash with Doner stands.  So a little wiki research has yielded the insight that it began during the Ottoman Empire but grew particularly due to labor arrangements in the sixties.  Turks are the largest ethnic minority population in Germany.