Popular success took a bit longer to come to Pamuk, but his 1990 novel Kara Kitap (The Black Book) became one of the most controversial and popular books in Turkish literature, due to its complexity and richness.
Pamuk agak lambat menjadi populer di kalangan khalayak umum, namun novelnya Kara Kitap (Buku Hitam) (1990) menjadi salah satu bacaan yang paling kontroversial dan populer dalam sastra Turki karena kompleksitas dan kekayaannya.