The year is 1992. Ka, a poet and political exile, returns to Turkey as a
journalist, assigned to investigate troubling reports of suicide in the
small and mysterious city of Kars on the Turkish border. The snow is
falling fast as he arrives, and soon all roads are closed. There's a
'suicide epidemic' amongst young religious women forbidden to wear their
headscarves. Islamists are poised to win the local elections and Ka is
falling in love with the beautiful and radiant Ipek, now recently divorced.
Amid blanketing snowfall and universal suspicion, he finds himself pursued
by terrorism in a city wasting away under the shadow of Europe. In the
midst of growing religious and political violence, the stage is set for a
terrible and desperate act . . . Touching, slyly comic, and humming with
cerebral suspense, Snow evokes the spiritual fragility of the non-Western
world, its ambivalence about the godless West, and its fury. 'A novel of
profound relevance to our present moment' The Times