He is a poet by trade, and at the start of the novel, he has only just returned to Turkey after years of self-exile in Germany. Kerim Alakusoglu-professionally and casually known as Ka-is the protagonist of the novel. This latter tension is a key theme of the novel in the form of its obsession with theater and craft, so it is especially fitting to see echoes of this fixation in the text's narration. Thus, the fact of the novel's narration is designed not only to provide the third-person omniscient perspective that historical hindsight provides, but it is also designed to bridge the gap between personal recollection and history, as well as art and mythology/memory.

Additionally, at the end of the novel, Orhan's daughter Rüya is mentioned-the name of Orhan Pamuk's daughter in real life. Orhan claims that it was Ipek's beauty which moved him to try and understand Ka's mental state and actions towards the end of his life, and he often compares himself to his deceased friend. The result of this quest to piece together Ka's later years is the novel itself, which Orhan tells us time and again. A novelist and old friend of Ka, Orhan tasks himself with piecing together the last years of Ka's life and recovering the lost poems that Ka wrote during his time in Kars. The narrator stays unnamed almost through the entire novel, and he is only referred to as 'Orhan Bey' or 'Orhan' towards the very end of the novel.

Snow orhan