ORF.at, Austria
Sept 30 2005

Talking Turkey with Orhan Pamuk

by Jill Zobel

Orhan Pamuk: One of the most popular and controversial people in
Turkey today, the best-selling author of “My Name is Red” and “Snow”
is this year’s winner of the German Booksellers Federation’s Peace
Prize which will be presented on October 23rd at the Frankfurt Book
Fair. Born in Istanbul in 1952, Pamuk dreamed of being a poet but
went on to study architecture.
He started writing at the age of 22 and ever since he’s worked hard
to explain his vast country and the Turkish soul to his own people
and the world at-large. Aggressively pro-Europe, Pamuk passionately
believes that Turkey belongs in the EU. He also believes that those
against Turkey’s joining are anti-Turk and just a little bit racist
at heart. He knows his country isn’t perfect but publicly and in his
books challenges his nation to keep moving in the right direction.

Snow
A year ago I read a book called “Snow”. Still now I can’t get the
story out of my mind. Basically it’s a novel about a Turkish guy
living in Frankfurt, Germany for the past 12 years named Ka. He’s a
poet with writer’s block. He hasn’t been able to write anything in
years.
The novel opens with his return to Istanbul so as to attend his
mother’s funeral. While there he learns that an old girlfriend named
Ipek is now divorced so he decides to hang around for a while to get
to know his country again and, most importantly, to track down Ipek
who he’s told is living in a shabby hotel in Kars, a really poor
Anatolian town close to the Georgian border.
A newspaper friend just so happens to need a reporter to go to Kars
and find out about reports that school girls are committing suicide
because they’ve been forced by their schools to remove their
headscarves. So killing 2 birds with 1 stone – Ka travels to Kars in
a snowstorm, reports on the suicides, falls back in love with Ipek,
gets back in touch with her ex-husband who now is a prominent
Islamist politician very supportive of the school girl suicides and
gets involved with Kurdish nationalists, leftist securlar publishers
and actors, spies for the military police and common people all
suspicious of him if only because of his snazzy German overcoat. And,
it never stops snowing the whole time he’s there…in this poorest,
decaying remnant of the former Ottoman empire.

Orhan Pamuk

Essential reading
“When the book was published three years ago in Turkey I was
attacked. Some people were confused because I did not make hardline
statements about nationalists, political Islamists or military. In
fact the joy of writing this novel was to let everyone talk freely as
they are.”

Even before reading “Snow”, I’d read a New York Times book review
which said: “This seventh novel from Turkish writer Orhan Pamiuk is
not only an engrossing feat of tale-spinning, but essential reading
for our times.” Margaret Atwood, NYT, August 15,2004

Then I read it and wept when it was all over. It was/is the most
exciting, interesting, frustrating and stimulating book I’ve read in
years. But, it didn’t solve my dillemma: Was I for or against
Turkey’s joining the EU? What it did do for me was it sent me back to
the bookstore for more Pamuk books, it made me passionately want to
visit Turkey (especially Kars) and got me thinking that whichever way
it goes (Turkey in or out) I could live with it either way. But,
never did I dream after reading it that I would get to interview
Orhan Pamuk.

“They don’t like poor people”
Actually, I didn’t get to personally meet him but I did get to ask
all my questions and have them answered in full … like how does he
explain anti-Turkish feelings in the EU or those who don’t want his
country to join: “They don’t like Turks. They don’t like poor people.
They don’t like people with different cultural and religious
backgrounds and they don’t want their governments to treat Turks as
if they are equal human beings, unfortunately.”

You see, a couple of months after I finished “Snow” I was sitting
with a journalist friend named Radovan Grahovac who himself had just
finished the book. We started talking about it and Pamuk and he said:
I’m going to Turkey and do a Tönspuren program about him for Ö1. I
said “great and if you go promise you’ll interview him for me.” Well,
Radovan met Pamuk in Istanbul early September and asked him my big,
long list of questions.” His Tonspuren program, by the way, can be
heard tonight (Friday, September 30th and will be repeated on Sunday
night) on Ö1 at 22:15.

The same day Radovan was getting ready to leave I read on APA (the
Austrian press Agency wire service) that an Istanbul public
prosecutor ordered Pamuk to appear in court on December 16th. He was
charging him with insulting the Turkish national identity. If found
guilty, Orhan Pamuk could spend 3 years in a Turkish jail.
So, why would a nation that usually is very proud of ist famous
people charge someone like Pamuk with insulting the state. Well, in
February Pamuk gave an interview to a Swiss newspaper magazine about
the 90th anniversary of the mass killings of Armebnians and Kurds …
an event which despite the testimony of many historians the Turkish
government has always refused to take blame for. What Pamuk said in
the interview was: “30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed
in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it.”

Confused?
This is what he said to me (via Radovan) about the court case:
“This is a very controversial issue about which I tried to open up a
bit, talk a bit and then there’s this case opened up by the public
prosector of my neighbourhood in Istanbul saying I have insulted the
Turkish identity because lots of Armenians were killed 90 years ago
and since so much energy is spent to silence me of course I am not
going to shut up but at least the Turkish nation is starting to talk
about it a bit.”

Now, noone really believes the court in December will find Orhan
Pamuk guilty or send him to jail but for me it’s still so
unbelieveable that they would even take him to trial.

By the time the trial begins Turkey will have probably been
negotiating with the EU for two months. So, after all is said and
done…interview made, books read I’ve had plenty of time to think
about it. What do you think should happen? Shoudl Turkey be allowed
to join this mostly Christian club?

If you also are confused all I can say is read Orhan Pamuk’s books
or, even better, listen to this Saturday’s Reality Check, october 1st
at 12 noon with Steve Crilley.