CONTROVERSIAL TURKISH WRITER WINS NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE
By Elsa McLaren and agencies

The Times, UK
Oct 12 2006

Novelist Orhan Pamuk, whose prosecution for "insulting Turkishness"
raised concerns about suppression of free speech in Turkey, has today
won the Nobel literature prize.

His novels that have been translated into dozens of languages include
My Name is Red, Snow and The White Castle and deal with the clash
between past and present, East and West, secularism and Islamism,
often against the colourful backdrop of his native Istanbul.

The Swedish Academy said that that the 54-year-old writer "in the
quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new
symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures."

Not one to avoid confrontation, Pamuk went on trial for telling a
Swiss newspaper that Turkey was unwilling to deal with two of the most
painful episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians
during the First World War and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey’s
overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.

In an ironic twist the announcement today of his win comes at the
same time French MPs voted to approve a draft law that would make
it a criminal offence to deny that Turkish massacres of Armenians in
1915-17 constituted genocide.

Pamuk’s prize marked the first time that a writer from a predominantly
Muslim country has been honoured for literature since 1988, when the
award went to Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, who died in August.

Pinar Kur, a leading female Turkish novelist said: "For years,
everybody has wished someone from Turkey would win the Nobel.

But it is also known, both in Turkey and abroad, that this prize is
much more related to politics than to literature, it is given more
for political reasons.

It is very unfortunate that this prize announcement was made on the
same day as the [Armenian genocide] Bill in France."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress