Profile of Orhan Pamuk on Famous Like Me

Orhan Pamuk (born on June 7, 1952 in Istanbul, Turkey) is a leading Turkish novelist of post-modern literature. He is hugely popular in his homeland, and has a growing readership around the globe. As one of Eurasia's most prominent novelists, his work has been translated into more than forty languages. He is the recipient of major Turkish and international literary awards.

Pamuk was born into a wealthy family; his father was an engineer. He was educated at the American high school Robert College in Istanbul. Then he attended an architectural program at the Istanbul Technical University, because of family pressures to be an engineer or architect. However, he dropped out after three years to become a full-time writer. Pamuk graduated from the Institute of Journalism at the University of Istanbul in 1977. He was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City from 1985 to 1988, a period which also included a stint as visiting fellow at the University of Iowa. He then returned to Istanbul.

Pamuk started writing regularly in 1974. His first novel, Karanlık ve Işık (Darkness and Light) was a co-winner of the 1979 Milliyet Press Novel Contest (Mehmet Eroğlu was the other winner). This novel was published with the title Cevdet Bey ve Oğulları (Mr. Cevdet and His Sons) in 1982, and won the Orhan Kemal Novel Prize in 1983. It tells the story of three generations of a wealthy Istanbul family living in Nisantasi, the district of Istanbul where Pamuk grew up.

Pamuk won a number of critical prizes for his early work, including the 1984 Madarali Novel Prize for his second novel Sessiz Ev (The Silent House) and the 1991 Prix de la Découverte Européenne for the French translation of this novel. His historical novel Beyaz Kale (The White Castle), published in Turkish in 1985, won the 1990 Independent Award for Foreign Fiction and extended his reputation abroad. The New York Times Book Review stated, "A new star has risen in the east--Orhan Pamuk." He started experimenting with postmodern trickery in his novels, rather than sticking to the strict naturalism of his early works.

Popular success took a bit longer to come to Pamuk, but his 1990 novel Kara Kitap (The Black Book (novel)) became one of the most controversial and popular readings in Turkish literature, due to its complexity and richness. In 1992, he wrote the screenplay for the movie Gizli Yüz (Secret Face), based on Kara Kitap and directed by a prominent Turkish director, Ömer Kavur. Pamuk's fourth novel Yeni Hayat (New Life), caused a sensation in Turkey upon its 1995 publication and became the fastest-selling book in Turkish history. By this time, Pamuk had also become a high-profile figure in Turkey, due to his support for Kurdish political rights. In 1995, Pamuk was among a group of authors tried for writing essays that criticized Turkey's treatment of the Kurds.

In 1999, Pamuk published his story book Öteki Renkler (The Other Colors).

Pamuk's international reputation continued to increase when he published Benim Adım Kırmızı (My Name Is Red) in 2000. The novel blends mystery, romance, and philosophical puzzles in a setting of 16th century Istanbul. It opens a window into the reign of Ottoman Sultan Murat III in nine snowy winter days of 1591, inviting the reader to experience the tension between East and West from a breathlessly urgent perspective. My Name Is Red has been translated into 24 languages and won international literature's most lucrative prize, the IMPAC Dublin Award in 2003.

Asked the question “What impact did winning the IMPAC award (currently $127,000) have on your life and your work?“, Pamuk replied “Nothing changed in my life since I work all the time. I've spent 30 years writing fiction. For the first 10 years, I worried about money and no one asked how much money I made. The second decade I spent money and no one was asking about that. And I've spent the last 10 years with everyone expecting to hear how I spend the money, which I will not do.”

Pamuk's most recent novel is Kar in 2002 (English translation, Snow, 2004), which explores the conflict between Islamism and Westernism in modern Turkey. The New York Times listed Snow as one of its Ten Best Books of 2004. He also published a memoir/travelogue İstanbul-Hatıralar ve Şehir in 2003 (English version, Istanbul-Memories and the City, 2005).

Pamuk's books are characterized by a confusion or loss of identity brought on in part by the conflict between European and Islamic values. They are often disturbing or unsettling, but include complex, intriguing plots and characters of great depth. His works are also redolent with discussion and fascination with the creative arts, such as literature and painting.

Pamuk married Aylin Turegen in 1982, but the couple divorced in 2001. They have a daughter named Rüya. Pamuk continues to reside in Istanbul.

Controversy

In a freedom of expression case being watched around the world, Pamuk has been charged in Turkey as the result of statements concerning the Armenian Genocide and Kurdish militancy. Specifically the new article 301/1 in the Turkish penal code, which states: "A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be imposed to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years."

Specifically Pamuk has been charged for stating: "thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it." The charging of Pamuk has also created problems for Turkey in its EU entry efforts.

Some of his Turkish collegues have attacked him for concentrating his criticism against "Turkey and Turks", and for not being equally critical of other governments.

In a review of Snow in The Atlantic, Christopher Hitchens complained that "from reading Snow one might easily conclude that all the Armenians of Anatolia had decided for some reason to pick up and depart en masse, leaving their ancestral properties for tourists to gawk at."

However, John Updike in The New Yorker for the same book wrote: "“To produce a major work so frankly troubled and provocatively bemused and, against the grain of the author’s usual antiquarian bent, entirely contemporary in its setting and subjects, took the courage that art sometimes visits upon even its most detached practitioners.”

List of Books

Cevdet Bey ve Oğulları (1982, Mr. Cevdet and His Sons)
Beyaz Kale (1985, The White Castle)
Kara Kitap (1990, The Black Book )
Yeni Hayat (1995, New Life)
Benim Adım Kırmızı (2000, My Name Is Red)
Kar (2002, Snow)
İstanbul: Hatıralar ve Şehir (2003, Istanbul: Memories and the City)

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