Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Middle Eastern Literatures, 2026 (AHCI, Scopus)
This article demonstrates the intricate connections between ideas of virality and translation in Orhan Pamuk's novel Veba Geceleri (2021), and its translation into English by Ekin Oklap, Nights of Plague (2022), from the perspective of translation as contagion. To this end, it discusses instances of transfiction, the East-West dichotomy, and heteroglossia in the plot. The study concludes that the novel's plot devices–namely, the translation of European scientific texts into Ottoman, and the island's linguistic diversity–appear designed to foreground the East-West divide and its intra-communal counterpart: the tension between traditional narratives and those shaped by Western rationality and biomedicine. However, these particularistic representations collapse in the international reception of the English translation, as the work is reframed within an intertextual network spanning languages, genres, and historical periods. The study aims to contribute to Translational Medical Humanities, and to debates on modern Turkish fiction in English translation.