Pamuk, Orhan

▪ 2006

      The best of times, the worst of times—2005 had its ups and downs for Turkey's star novelist Orhan Pamuk. During the year lustre was added to his already formidable international reputation when he received the German Book Trade Peace Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair and the French Prix Médicis for his novel Snow. This was also the year in which he found himself under indictment in a Turkish court and at the vortex of a human rights debate because of his political views.

      Pamuk was born on June 7, 1952, in Istanbul. His family was wealthy and Western-oriented; childhood dinner-table conversations, he recalled, often centred on history and literature, especially novels, which Pamuk called “one of the cornerstones of European civilization.” He was sent for secondary education to the American-run Robert College of Istanbul, and he began to train for a career as an architect at Istanbul Technical University. After three years, however, he dropped out and devoted himself full-time to writing. He graduated (1977) from the University of Istanbul with a degree in journalism. From 1985 to 1988 he lived in the United States and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University, New York City, and the University of Iowa.

      Literary recognition came gradually. Pamuk began writing seriously in 1974, and his work evolved from naturalism to postmodernism over the course of eight novels that were published from 1982 to 2004. His works were often autobiographical and intricately plotted; they revealed a deep understanding of traditional Turkish Islamic culture but were tempered by a realization that Turkey's future lay in the West. Beginning in the 1990s Pamuk's work attracted international attention. His fourth novel to be translated into English, Yeni hayat (1994; The New Life, 1997), a literary mystery, was a best seller in Turkey. Benim adım kırmızı (1998; My Name Is Red, 2001), a historical murder mystery, won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2003. Kar (2002; Snow, 2004), which was set in the city of Kars, in raw, underdeveloped eastern provincial Turkey, was also well received (if controversial) at home and much praised abroad. Pamuk followed these works with İstanbul: hatıralar ve șehir (2004; Istanbul: Memories of a City, 2005), a partly fictionalized memoir about the city of his childhood.

      Pamuk was a strong advocate of Turkish integration into Europe and specifically its accession to the European Union. He was critical of those who rejected the idea of receiving Muslim Turkey into Europe, pointing out that Turks had never defined Europe in terms of its dominant Christian faith.

      As if to catalyze the issue of Turkey's readiness to accept European-style human rights, Pamuk in February gave an interview to a Swiss newspaper in which he repeated charges of deliberate killing by Turks of a million Armenians in 1915 and of 30,000 Kurds more recently. For this he was charged under a provision of the Turkish penal code that made it a criminal offense to criticize “Turkishness.” The case went to trial on December 16 but was promptly postponed until February 2006.

Editor

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▪ Turkish author

born June 7, 1952, Istanbul, Tur.

 

 Turkish novelist, best known for works that probe Turkish identity and history. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.

      Raised in a wealthy and Western-oriented family, Pamuk attended Robert College, an American school in Istanbul, and went on to study architecture at Istanbul Technical University. After three years he dropped out and devoted himself full-time to writing. In 1977 he graduated from the University of Istanbul with a degree in journalism. From 1985 to 1988 he lived in the United States and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York and the University of Iowa.

      Pamuk began writing seriously in 1974 and eight years later published his first novel, Cevdet Bey ve oğulları (“Cevdet Bey and His Sons”), a sweeping history of an Istanbul family during and after the establishment of the Turkish republic. He first achieved international fame with Beyaz kale (1985; The White Castle), his third novel, which explores the nature of identity through the story of a learned young Italian captured and made a slave to a scholar in 17th-century Istanbul. His later novels, which were widely translated, include Kara kitap (1990; The Black Book), a dense depiction of Istanbul, and the mysteries Yeni hayat (1996; The New Life) and Benim adım kırmızı (1998; My Name Is Red). In Kar (2002; Snow) a Turkish poet living in exile in Germany faces the tensions between East and West when he travels to a poor town in a remote area of Turkey. İstanbul: hatıralar ve șehir (2004; Istanbul: Memories and the City, also published as Istanbul: Memories of a City) is a partly fictionalized memoir. Masumiyet müzesi (2008; “The Museum of Innocence”) investigates the relationship between an older man and his second cousin. Thwarted in his attempts to marry her, the man begins to collect objects that she has touched. Pamuk replicated the titular museum in reality, using a house in Istanbul to display a range of items amassed while plotting the story.

      Many of these works, often autobiographical and intricately plotted, show an understanding of traditional Turkish Islamic culture tempered by a belief that Turkey's future lies in the West. Pamuk drew criticism from some in Turkey for advocating the country's integration into Europe and its accession to the European Union. In 2005, after a Swiss newspaper published an interview in which he repeated claims that Turks had deliberately killed a million Armenians in 1915 (see Armenian massacres) and 30,000 Kurds more recently, Pamuk was charged with “denigrating Turkishness” and put on trial in Turkey in December. The charges, which produced international controversy, were later dropped.

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