The story encapsulates many of the political and cultural tensions of modern Turkey, including a real suicide epidemic among teenage girls, which took place in the city of Batman.

Though he has suffered from writer's block for a number of years, Ka feels inspired and composes a poem called "Snow", which describes a mystic experience.

Soon after Ka leaves the National Theatre after his recitation, a play named "My Fatherland or My Headscarf" is acted out by Sunay Zaim, Funda Eser and their troupe of actors.

Seizing an opportunity, Ka meets with Blue and Kadife (İpek's sister), pretending to represent a German magazine interested in publishing a statement by the Islamists against the massacre and the coup, and convinces them to arrange a meeting of local politically conscious citizens—including Turgut Bey—where they can collectively come up with a statement to publish in the German magazine.

Ka is taken to meet Sunay Zaim, an actor whose group put on the play at the National Theater and who is now orchestrating the round-ups and investigations of suspicious persons.

The isolation of Kars, and Zaim's old friendship with the officer in charge of the local garrison, enabled him to become a revolutionary dictator in real life as well as on the stage.

In the end it is disclosed that a new group of Islamic militants was formed by younger followers of Blue who had been forced into exile in Germany and based themselves in Berlin, vowing to take revenge for the death of their admired leader.

A couple of critics pronounce the experiment a failure; in his attempt to replicate the confusion of life in modern Turkey, Pamuk leaves some readers bewildered.