I´m with you -- I far prefer Elif Şafak to Orhan Pamuk. Better still is Ahmet Ümit ...

 No, that´s me. Do you read mine every week in Sunday´s Zaman??  They´re on the arts and culture page.

what about Ayşe Kulin - I discovered her books 2 years ago and I love them - even if I read them in turkish (with dictionary`s help sometimes)

 Yes, also Selçuk Altan. But they tend to be a bit hit and miss, compared with Elif Şafak who, with Aşk (Forty Rules of Love) and İskender (Honour) has really found her voice.

I completely disagree with you about Elif Safak Orhan Pamuk comparison. Orhan Pamuk has more subtance and the stories are very well crafted. Simply because Orhan Pamuk is a hard worker. He spends huge amount of time crafting his novels. He said that he spent 10 years with masumiyet muzesi. He even had to research about history of museums to have a better knowledge about them. 

Elif Safak spent only 6 months with Iskender. I think she was much much better in Pinhan and Bastard of Istanbul. Infact, Pinhan was the best for me.

A good writer is a talented gift and it  is not always necessary to spend 10 years on research. Nor is it someone who  has studied writing or literature. I happen to like Elif Shafak and suggest you  to read a few of her other books - The Flea Palace was a a great book about an old apartment building in Istanbul - it gave both the strength and weakness of each family/person who lived in the building.

The forty Rules of Love that combined  Rumi was another heart touching and thought evoking book.

Honour is her latest book which is being delivered to me ( hopefully today ) I will let you know about that one when I have read it.

The Bastard of Istanbul was another great book which brought  attention to Armenian history in Istanbul on top of other delicate subjects like incest again

Every writer has their own rhythm style. Her writing is active you are moving about as if it was part of your own day whereas with Pamuk you will begin to resent what you read because it is full of air................ long winded like a fart . I am not saying he does not appeal to me as a writer I have read his other books . Just that particular book was horrible, over written and long winded.

Lol

I dont want to speculate how hallow Orhan Pamuk is.  Obviously he is a hollow as all other nobel winners like Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hamingway etc..

I think Elif Safak should read more in my opinion and should spend more time with crafting the story. She seems like she HAS TO write a new book every 6 months!! The latest book I have read from her was Iskender and the plot seemed very obvious in the middle of the book!! I bet it was the same for many Turks. Because she did not spend enough time researching about the topic she is writing about, the life of a young man-Iskender- in London was quite superficial and almost imaginary. 

I think she is quite good at writing about religious and mystical part of our ´past culture´!!

Both writers have their own unique style of writing and both writers basically have become internationally writers giving readers a glimpse into Turkishness.

Show me where she has written 2 books in one year and I will show you Orhan Pamuk has done the same thing

Darkness and Light (1979)
  Cevdet Bey and His Sons (1982)
 The Silent House (1983)
The White Castle (1985)
The Black Book (1 990 )
The Secret Face ( 1992 ) movie Gizli Yuz
The New Life ( 1994 )
Other Colors: Essays and a Story ( 1999 )
Snow ( 2002 )
Istanbul: Memories and the City ( 2003 ) Where´s the 10 years of reading and study for this book????
My Father´s Suitcase (2007)
The Museum of Innocence (2008)
Manzaradan Parçalar ( 2010 )
Fragments of the Landscape ( 2010 )
The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist (2011)
The Innocence of Objects (2012)

Elif also did the same that year

•  Kâğıt Helva,  2010
•  Firarperest,  2010

I liked Love in the Time of Cholera, but Marquez´ 100 years of silence left me cold. I guess I´ll have to read Elif Safak now....Have you ever read anything by Isabel Allende? I read her Zorro, Inez of my Soul, Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia. I love a good book that takes me on a journy, and has accurate historic information.  Ms Allennde did a lot of research when she wrote the above mentioned books. 
I have yet to read Ms. Safak, how is her historic information/research? I love Yasar Kemal and would like to read more of him, but I haven´t found many of his books translated.  

you might also like Mary Lee Settle - Turkish Reflections which is an excellent read about Turkey in the late 70´s and her return to Turkey much later.

I´ll have to check it out sometime. In Amazon´s blurb on it is interesting to read "Mary Settle offers us an intimate portrait of a Turkey rarely seen-a land where the cutting of a tree is a crime," Obviously times have changed.