Orhan Pamuk

Ferit Orhan Pamuk (Istanbul, June 7, 1952) is a Turkish writer and Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 2006.

Biography

He was born into a wealthy family (his father was an engineer), residing in the westernized Nişantaşı neighborhood of Istanbul, similar to those he describes in some of his novels.

He attended high school at the American Robert College in his hometown and then began studying architecture, but three years later he abandoned his degree to dedicate himself to literature full time. In 1977 he graduated from the Journalism Institute of Istanbul University, although he never practiced the profession. Between 1985 and 1988 he lived in New York and worked as a visiting professor at Columbia University while his wife, the historian Aylin Türegün, studied there. He subsequently returned to Istanbul. Pamuk is a cultural Muslim. The marriage to Türegün lasted from 1982 to 2001; In 1991 his daughter, Rüya, was born.

About his vocation he has said: «I remember perfectly the moment when I wanted to be a writer. It was an afternoon in March or April, in the spring of 1973. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and started writing. That's how it went. I remember reading The Stranger, by Camus, and even though it had no influence on my writing, I thought it was going to help me become a writer." And about the moment he abandoned architecture: "I was 23 years and I told my family and friends that I was not going to be the architect or painter that they all wanted, but a novelist. Everyone told me not to do it, that I had no idea about life. I think they thought he was going to write just one novel. But I told them that Borges and Kafka existed, and that they had no idea about life either... Novels, it seems to me, are an unprecedented way of seeing life. Only now, after all this time, do I confess that when my family told me that I knew nothing about life, they were right. At that time I didn't know anything."

Although his career as a writer began in the late 70s, and his first novel was published in 1982, his work began to have international impact with the novel The Astrologer and the Sultan (< i>Beyaz Kale, 1985), praised by the American John Updike, and reached its definitive consecration with My name is Red (Benim Adım Kırmızı, 1998), a novel that combines mystery narration, love story and philosophical reflection, set in Istanbul in the XVI century, under the reign of Sultan Murad III.

Pamuk was put on trial in December 2004 for "insulting and weakening Turkish identity" (article 301 of the penal code), in an interview with a Swiss newspaper in which he uttered the following sentence: "In Turkey they killed a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds. Nobody talks about it and they hate me for doing it. The first sentence imposed a suspended sentence of six months, during which he had to abstain from committing crimes in order to maintain his freedom. He reaffirmed his words in October 2005. In January 2006 a court abandoned the judicial process.

Pamuk's civic position on human rights, particularly on the Armenian and Kurdish problems in Turkey, has made him a character that generates controversy in his homeland, and while there some admire him, others consider him a traitor. The Turkish government has refused to admit that he committed genocide against the Armenians in 1915. The hate campaign unleashed against him in Turkey after that interview forced him to leave the country for a time. Already earlier, in 1995, he was among the group of writers judged for his essays in which they criticized the government for its policy towards the Kurds.

After the murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, which occurred in January 2007, and the death threats he received, Pamuk once again left his homeland. Some Turkish media, such as the newspaper Aksam, accused him of having used Dink's murder as a pretext to go to the United States to earn money by giving lectures at Columbia University. The accusations were denied by Fatih Altayli, editor of the newspaper Sabah, calling them "gossip." Pamuk returned to her hometown in April of that same year to write her next novel, Masumiyet Muzesi (Museum of Innocence).

In an interview given to the German weekly Der Spiegel, at the beginning of a reading tour of his work in Germany, he mentions that after Dink's death, many intellectuals fell into a deep depression and which for him personally was a terrible shock. That is why he preferred to distance himself from the facts, attending professorships at Columbia University in New York. The sudden cancellation of readings of his work in Germany in February 2007 was due to the fact that, due to the recent events, he was going to be constantly questioned; Furthermore, death threats would give them a relevance that he did not intend to give them. He assured that this cancellation was not due to him doubting the effectiveness of the German police forces in preventing possible attacks by Islamist groups residing in Germany.

His academic stays in the United States have always been productive. There he completed his most recent novel (The Museum of Innocence) and in 1990 The Black Book, his first international success. On the other hand, although there have been death threats from fundamentalist Turks, Pamuk believes that nothing and no one will force him into exile.

On October 12, 2006, Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature as a writer who, "in search of the melancholic soul of his hometown, has found new symbols to reflect the clash and interconnection of cultures," as he says the verdict of the Swedish Academy. He is the first Turk to receive this award. His works have been translated into more than 40 languages.

On April 28, 2012, the Museum of Innocence based on his novel of the same name opens its doors in Istanbul (The Museum of Innocence, Mondadori, 2009) in the Cihangir neighborhood, in Beyoglu.

The Istanbul prosecutor's office opened a new investigation against the writer in November 2021, accusing him of insulting Turkish identity in his book ''Veba Geceleri''

Work

Novels

• 1982 - Cevdet Bey ve Oğulları (Cevdet Bey and childrenMondadori, 2013). The novel, with the title of Karanlık ve Işık (Darkness and light), shared the Milliyet editorial award 3 years earlier with the writer Mehmet Eroğlu
• 1983 - Sessiz Ev (The house of silence, Metáfora Editions, 2001)
• 1985 - Beyaz Kale (The astrologer and the sultanEdhasa, 1994; The White CastleMondadori, 2007)
• 1990 - Kara Kitap (The Black Book, Alfaguara, 2001)
• 1995 - Yeni Hayat (The new life, Alfaguara, 2002)
• 1998 - Benim Adım Kırmızı (My name is Red., Alfaguara, 2003)
• 2001 - Kar (Nieve), Alfaguara, 2005)
• 2008 - Masumiyet Müzesi (The Museum of innocenceMondadori, 2009)
• 2014 - Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık (A strange feeling, Random House Literature, 2015)
• 2016 - Kirmizi Saçh Kadin (The woman of red hair, Random House Literature, 2018)
• 2021 - Veba Geceleri (The nights of the plague, Random House Literature, 2022)

Memories

• 2005 - İstanbul: Hatıralar ve Şehir (Istanbul. City and memoriesMondadori, 2006)

Tests

• 1999 - Öteki Renkler (Other coloursMondadori, 2008)
• 2007 - Babamın Bavulu (My father's suitcaseMondadori, 2007)
• 2010 - The Naive and Sentimental Novelist (The naive novelist and the sentimental, Mondadori, 2011; first published by Harvard Press in 2010 and the following year in Turkish Saf ve Düşünceli Romancı)

Prizes and distinctions

• 1979 Milliyet Yayınları Roman Yarışması (Milliyet novel contest; Turkey) by Karanlık ve Işık (ex aequo with writer Mehmet Eroğlu), published in 1982 with the title Cevdet Bey ve Oğulları
• 1982 Orhan Kemal Award Cevdet Bey ve Oğulları
• 1984 Madaralı Roman Ödülü (Newsletter Madarali Award; Turkey) by Sessiz Ev
• 1990 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (United Kingdom) for his novel Beyaz Kale
• 1991 Prix de la Découverte Européenne (France) for translation into French Sessiz Ev
• 1995 Prize France Culture
• 2002 Award for Best Foreign Book (France) Benim Adım Kırmızı
• 2002 Grinzane Cavour Award (Italy) for Benim Adım Kırmızı
• 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (Ireland) by Benim Adım Kırmızı
• 2004 Award New York Times the best foreign book
• 2005 German Free Trade Peace Award
• 2005 Foreign Medici Award (France) for her novel Kar
• 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature
• 2006 Medalla Distinguished Humanist (Washington University in San Luis)
• 2006 Order of Arts and Letters (France)
• 2007 Doctor honoris causa por la Universidad Libre de Berlin
• 2007 Doctor Humane Letters Honoris causa by Georgetown University
• 2007 Doctor honoris causa por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid
• 2008 Ovid Prize (Romania)
• 2010 Norman Mailer Award (United States)
• 2012 Sonning Prize (Denmark)
• 2012 Légion d'honneur Officier (France)
• 2014 The Mary Lynn Kotz Award (USA) for his book "The Innocence of Objects"
• 2014 Tabernakul Prize (Macedony)
• 2014 European Museum of the Year Award (Estonia)
• 2014 Helena Vaz da Silva European Award for Public Awareness on Cultural Heritage (Portugal)
• 2015 Erdal Öz Prize (Turkey), for his novel A Strangeness in My Mind
• 2015 Aydın Doğan Foundation Award (Turkey), for his novel A Strangeness in My Mind
• 2016 The Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award ("Foreign Literature" category, Russia) for his novel A Strangeness in My Mind
• 2016 Milovan Vidaković Prize in Novi Sad (Serbia)
• 2017 Budapest Grand Prize (Hungary)
• 2017 Literary Flame Prize (Montenegro)
• 2019 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement