Polygraph (author) Polygraph (author) A polygraph (from Ancient Greek: πολύς, poly = "many" and γράφειν, graphein = "to write") is an author who writes in a variety of fields. In literature, the term polygraph is often applied to certain writers of antiquity such as Aristotle, Plutarch, Varro, Cicero and Pliny the Elder. Polygraphs still existed in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but, other than writers of books for children, they have become rarer in modern times due to the specialisation of knowledge. Voltaire and Diderot are examples of modern polygraphs. The term can be used in a pejorative sense to mean a
My Name Is Red the specific manuscripts described (most prominently the "Shahnama given by Shah Tahmasp", more commonly known in the west as the Houghton shahnama) are real and survive in whole or part. "My Name Is Red" received favourable reviews when published in English. A reviewer for "Publishers Weekly" admires the novel's "...jeweled prose and alluring digressions, nesting stories within stories" and concludes that Pamuk will gain many new readers with this "...accessible, charming and intellectually satisfying, narrative." A "Kirkus Reviews" critic describes the novel as "...a whimsical but provocative exploration of the nature of art in an Islamic society. . . .