Like modern-day curiosity cabinets, these glass-fronted display cases hold thousands of objects, from personal effects and household items to photos, documents and newspaper clippings. The Museum of Innocence features 83 vitrines of different sizes, each corresponding to a chapter in the book and arranged in the same order. Though the opening was a few years later than planned, Pamuk’s choice of date was deliberate: April 28, the day in 1975 that Kemal encounters Fusun for the first time as an adult, thus setting the story in motion. In an unusual twist, the book includes a ticket to the real-life museum, offering readers one free admission (tickets can also be purchased). After he loses Fusun forever, Kemal buys the Keskin family’s home with the intention of turning it into a museum devoted to his beloved. Because of his inability to possess Fusun, Kemal begins collecting things she has touched and reminders of her and their relationship, eventually amassing an array of objects over many years. Spanning the years between 1975 and the early 21st century, Pamuk’s epic novel tells the story of Kemal Basmaci, born to a wealthy Istanbul family, whose fleeting affair with Fusun Keskin, a distant relative from a lower class who is 12 years his junior, turns into an obsessive love. They are deeply intertwined because they are both made by me, word by word and object by object,” Pamuk said at a media opening for the museum.

Neither is the novel an explanation of the museum.

“The Museum of Innocence is not an illustration of ‘The Museum of Innocence’ the novel. He is the founder, financier, curator and artistic director, although he worked with museum specialists from Turkey and Germany, including architect Gregor Sunder-Plassmann. The museum’s opening was delayed in large part because Pamuk has overseen every detail himself, even taking a hiatus from novel-writing for about six months last year. However, his original goal of launching a museum at the same time proved too ambitious. It has been translated into nearly 60 other languages. The Turkish author, 59, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, published the best-selling “ The Museum of Innocence” in Turkish in 2008 and in English the following year. I conceived of the book and the museum together,” Pamuk said. “The idea came to me almost 15 years ago to set an imaginary story in a real house in Istanbul. ISTANBUL - Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence, which opened here last weekend, is an unprecedented project for a writer: the first museum in the world based on an eponymous work of fiction.

The museum of innocence museum