The Museum of Innocence - set in Istanbul between 1975 and today - tells the story of Kemal, the son of one of Istanbul`s richest families, and of his obsessive love for a poor and distant relation, the beautiful Fusun, who is a shop-girl in a small boutique. The novel depicts a panoramic view of life in Istanbul as it chronicles this long, obsessive, love affair between Kemal and Fusun; and Pamuk beautifully captures the identity crisis experienced by Istanbul`s upper classes who find themselves caught between traditional and westernised ways of being. For the past ten years, Pamuk has been setting up a museum in the house in which his hero`s fictional family lived, to display Kemal`s strange collection of objects associated with Fusun and their relationship. The museum will be called The Museum of Innocence and it opens in 2010.