13 October 2006

Global Writing: Turkish Novelist Pamuk Wins Nobel for Literature

You may have read it here first, back when I compiled my list of "Best Books for 2005":

Snow, Orhan Pamuk. This novel is perhaps the Turkish writer's most accessible in translation. It follows a poet as he faces the challenges of being an exile returning to a country and a culture that is caught been Europe and a hard place. A timely read with Pamuk's recent trials for "defaming Turkey" by speaking out against the atrocities inflicted by the Turks on the Armenians during WWI. He's likely to win the Nobel for Literature one day, hopefully before he's assassinated by a zealot.

By honoring Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk with the Nobel Prize for Literature this morning, the Committee recognizes not only a literary world treasure, but an eloquent dissident. Pamuk, whose work often deals with issues of identity and fundamentalism versus modernism, has openly criticized Turkey’s government for failing to acknowledge that Turks committed genocide against Armenians and Kurds during World War I. Turkey is bidding for membership in the European Union. If it wants to become a part of the EU, then Turkey must cease to punish its leading thinkers for their outspoken views.

We congratulate this remarkable writer.

For more: Pamuk

and from YaleGlobal a year ago: Persecuted Novelist

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