A Writer Bridges a Cultural Chasm
As a Turkish writer published in the West, the novelist Orhan Pamuk is often laden with an ambassador's burden, and in the two years since the Sept. 11 attacks it has grown only heavier. Pamuk, 51, who grew up in a wealthy Istanbul family, has lived in Switzerland and America and also known better than most of his countrymen the Islamic traditions and history of his country, which were all but erased by secular 20th' century reforms.
Life in Istanbul is a constant balancing act between conflicting influences, which makes change inevitable, Pamuk said. But he rejects the ambassadorial role, he said here before accepting the International Impac Dublin Literary Award. Rather than accommodate and explain differences between two cultures, he chooses to probe the feelings of people caught up in that change. “I don't believe in, say, a clash of civilizations,” he said. “I am living a culture where the clash of East and West, or the harmony of East and West, is the lifestyle. That is Turkey .”
 Regardless of what it is called, that mix can be violent. Pamuk's most recent book, “My Name Is Red”, is about the impact of European Renaissance painting on the insular world of 16th century Islamic illustrators, and the characters in that atmosphere of flux principally feel confusion and pain; by the end of the novel they are left either blinded, crippled, decapitated or, at least, scorned and humbled.
The plot of “Red” is propelled by a murder mystery and a love story, as a handful of miniaturist painters' work in secret on a book for the Ottoman Sultan Murat III. The novel recounts the details of an essential yet forgotten Turkish art. More important than the texture of that forgotten world is how it adapted, Pamuk said. In 1591 ambitious young miniaturists grappled with the seductive allure Venetian painting, and felt intense shame when they rejected the tradition of their fathers and workshop masters. The masters resisted change so stubbornly that they preferred to blind themselves rather than be corrupted by the infidel and selfish styles of the West, even as they realized their techniques were disappearing.
Very few Turks today show an interest in the legends of their country's cultural history, partly because they know nothing about it, Pamuk said. He began research for this novel (he called it a “walk around in those forgotten woods”) in 1992. It was published in Turkish in 1998.
Pamuk has rejected official titles, as he did when the Turkish government tried to honor him with a state artist position five years ago. But he has willingly, even eagerly, accepted the celebrity status that his eight novels have brought him in Istanbul . (The eighth, “Snow,” will be published in English translation in February.)
Pamuk travels regularly to indulge his passion for contemporary Western culture just as he engages with his own heritage in Istanbul : “You go to the past and try to invent a pure image of yourself, and then you understand the vanity and romanticism of it. Then you go to the West and are shamelessly inspired by the newest postmodern form. Then you also realize the vanity of it. And your pendulum goes back between East and West. What is important is that you don't have to be too problematical and ethical about this. That is how life is at that corner of the world, and I accept it. My happiness is that I can make a melancholy music out of all these comings and goings.” |
"A new star has risen in the east - Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish writer."
 He was born in Istanbul on June 7, 1952. He spent all his life in Istanbul , except three years in New York . After attending the architecture program in Istanbul Technical University for three years, he finished the Institute of Journalism at the Istanbul University . He started writing regularly in 1974. His first novel, Cevdet Bey ve Ogullari, was awarded the first prize in the 1979 Novel Contest of the Milliyet Press. This book, published in 1982, also won the Orhan Kemal Novel Prize in 1983. He received the 1984 Madarali Novel Prize with his second novel Sessiz Ev, published in 1983, and the 1991 Prix de la Découverte Européenne with the French translation of the novel. His historical novel Beyaz Kale, published in 1985, extended his reputation abroad. The New York Times Book Review wrote: "A new star has risen in the east - Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish writer." His 1990 landmark novel Kara Kitap has become one of the most controversial and popular readings in Turkish literature, due to its complexity and richness. In 1992, he wrote the script of the film Gizli Yuz (derived from Kara Kitap), directed by a prominent Turkish director, Omer Kavur. His last novel, Yeni Hayat, has been a best-seller in Turkey in 1995. His books have been translated to thirteen foreign languages so far.
| Orhan Pamuk's Books: |
| Cevdet Bey ve Ogullari (Cevdet Bey and His Sons -- winner of the 1983 Orhan Kemal Novel Award) |
Sessiz Ev (Silent House -- winner of the 1984 Madarali Novel Award and the 1991 La Découverte Européenne Award) |
 Beyaz Kale (The White Castle/1985 -- winner of the Foreign Fiction Award of the Month given by The Independent in 1990), English translation by V. Holbrook: The White Castle , 1991, George Brazilier, New York.
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 Kara Kitap (The Black Book/1990),
English translation by G. Gun: The Black Book , 1995, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.
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 Benim Adim Kirmizi (My Name Is Red /1998) |
 Yeni Hayat (New Life/1995)
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Gizli Yuz (Script/1992)
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Istanbul, Souvenirs and the City (2003) |
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