SWEDEN / USA: Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk says he is honoured to win Nobel Prize for Literature

Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's best-known novelist and incendiary social commentator, won the 2006 Nobel prize for Literature on Thursday (October 12). In its citation for the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.36 million) prize, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Horace Engdal said "The Nobel Prize for Literature for 2006 is awarded to the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his city has discovered new symbols for the interlacing and clashing of cultures." Pamuk, who just months ago went on trial for insulting "Turkishness", was the first author in the Muslim world to condemn the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. "Its overwhelming its a sort of a shock but I am very pleased and delighted and I feel a responsibility and I am enjoying the honour and distinction. I am very happy and pleased," Pamuk said. Pamuk, who arrived in the United States to teach, only five days ago was woken up by the call from the Swedish Academy. "Horace Engdahl had called and said that I have received the price and I said I accept this, this is a great honour and I take this price as a celebration of my humble service to the great art of the novel for the last 32 years and also a distinction bestowed upon not only me but also Turkish literature, Turkish culture and the Turkish language through which I am producing my books," he added. Pamuk's best-known novels include "My Name is Red" and "Snow", works that focus on the clash between past and present, East and West, secularism and Islamism -- issues at the heart of Turkey's struggle to develop. Although some say that his politics could have influenced the Nobel committee, critics say that Pamuk's writing is worthy of admiration and of the distinction he has received. His work has been translated into many languages and attracted international fans. "I don't know why my books are now translated to 46 languages, I don't know. I am just listening to an inner music, the mystery of which I don't completely know and I don't want to know. I am writing these novels with devotion and I am very grateful to all the readers but then if you ask why they are reading, I don't know," he said about the appeal of his work. Pamuk, 54, shot to fame with novels that explore Turkey's complex identity through its rich imperial past. Pamuk's most recent work, "Istanbul: Memories of a City," intersperses personal reminiscences of childhood and youth with reflections on the city's Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman past. "I consider myself as the story king of Istanbul. My books are about my town, Istanbul which was in the last, especially in the last century, was a neglected provincial, pushed into a sort of provincial place. But now it's approaching Europe and it's getting rich and complicated. Our complicated history, the stories and mysteries of Istanbul are my subject," he said.

ITN Source | October 13, 2006

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