Turkey's Pamuk wins Nobel literature prize

updated 7:52 p.m. ET Oct. 13, 2006

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, whose uncommon lyrical gifts and uncompromising politics have brought him acclaim worldwide and prosecution at home, won the Nobel literature prize Thursday for his works dealing with the symbols of clashing cultures.

The selection of Pamuk, whose recent trial for “insulting Turkishness” raised concerns about free speech in Turkey, continues a trend among Nobel judges of picking writers in conflict with their own governments. British playwright Harold Pinter, a strong opponent of his country’s involvement in the Iraq war, won last year. Elfriede Jelinek, a longtime critic of Austria’s conservative politicians and social class, was the 2004 winner.

Pamuk, currently a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that he was overjoyed by the award, adding that remarks he made earlier this year referring to the Nobel literature prize as “nonsense” were a mistranslation.

He told AP that he accepted the prize as not “just a personal honor, but as an honor bestowed upon the Turkish literature and culture I represent.”

The author did have one complaint: The Swedish Academy announced the prize at 7 a.m., EDT.

“They called and woke me up, so I was a bit sleepy,” said Pamuk, adding that he had no immediate plans to celebrate, but looked forward to being with friends back in Turkey.

Pamuk, whose novels include “Snow” and “My Name is Red,” was charged last year for telling a Swiss newspaper in February 2005 that Turkey was unwilling to deal with two of the most painful episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians during World War I, which Turkey insists was not a planned genocide, and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey’s overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.

“Thirty-thousand Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it,” he told the newspaper.

The controversy came at a particularly sensitive time for the overwhelmingly Muslim country. Turkey had recently begun membership talks with the European Union, which has harshly criticized the trial.

The charges against Pamuk were dropped in January, ending the high-profile trial that outraged Western observers.

'New symbols'
The Swedish Academy said that the 54-year-old Istanbul-born Pamuk “in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.”

In Turkey, fellow novelists, poets and publishers were among the first to congratulate Pamuk, but nationalists who regard the novelist as a traitor accused the Swedish Academy of rewarding the author because he had belittled Turks.

“The prize came as no surprise, we were expecting it,” said Kemal Kerincsiz, a nationalist lawyer who helped bring charges against Pamuk. “This prize was not given because of Pamuk’s books, it was given because of his words, because of his Armenian genocide claims.”

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry congratulated Pamuk, wishing him continued success and saying the prize would help give Turkish literature a wider audience abroad.

Prominent Armenian writers also hailed the decision to award a Nobel to Pamuk.

“This a lesson to those Turks who wanted to put him on trial. This is a victory for democracy in Turkey,” said Perch Zeituntsian, a leading Armenian writer and playwright, speaking in Yerevan, Armenia.

The head of Armenia’s Union of Writers, David Muradian, said the decision to award Pamuk the Nobel prize sends a strong message. “This is a both a literature prize and about morality.”

The head of the PEN American Center, the U.S. chapter of the international writers-human rights organization, also praised Pamuk’s selection.

“I think that Orhan Pamuk was a splendid choice for the Nobel Prize, not only for the evident literary merit of his work, but because of his courageous defiance of political pieties in Turkey,” said historian Ron Chernow, the chapter’s president.

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