National Public Radio (NPR)
SHOW: All Things Considered 8:00 PM EST
October 12, 2006 Thursday

Once Resented, Pamuk Takes Solace in Nobel

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

>From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I’m Michele Norris.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

And I’m Robert Siegel.

The winner of the Nobel Prize for literature was announced today. It
went to Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. Pamuk’s most recent novel is
called Snow. His previous novels include The White Castle and The
Black Book. He is a writer who took Turkish fiction out of the
village and into the city, specifically into his city, Istanbul.

NORRIS: Last year, a Turkish prosecutor charged Pamuk with the crime
of insulting Turkishness. That was for remarks he made about the
Armenian genocide. The charges were later dropped. Some Turkish
reaction today mixed pride in the recognition of a Turkish writer
with some lingering resentment of those remarks.

When we reached the new Nobel Laureate this morning in New York City,
Orhan Pamuk was in no mood to talk about politics.

SIEGEL: Mr. Pamuk, thank you for joining us and congratulations on
your Nobel Prize.

Mr. ORHAN PAMUK (Winner, Nobel Prize in Literature): Thank you very
much.

SIEGEL: You know, when you were on this program back in 1995 talking
about your novel, The Black Book, you talked about coming from one of
those countries, your phrase was on the periphery of the Western
world where the art of the novel was developed, and being one of
those writers who is grabbing that art from the center to the
periphery and then producing something new to show the world. Is it
still a fair characterization of what you’ve been doing?

Mr. PAMUK: Yeah, probably. But then, now perhaps Turkey’s getting
away from the periphery and joining towards Europe, of course in a
troubled way. But I think Turkey’s not at the periphery any more,
moving towards the center of the world, going towards the European
Union and West. That was Turkey’s history for the last 200 years
anyway.

SIEGEL: You’ve described yourself as really the first novelist to
write about modern, urban Istanbul, a city that you watched grow in
your own lifetime.

Mr. PAMUK: Yeah, Istanbul is my city, my kingdom. My stories are
about Istanbul. And I accept this honor, this prize, as a celebration
of my culture, my language and my town. Istanbul. The town I come
from. The town whose stories I’ve been telling for the last 30 years.

SIEGEL: Now, I want you to talk about something that is said in
Istanbul and elsewhere in Turkey today. There are those who still are
upset with your remarks about the Armenians and also about the Kurds.

Mr. PAMUK: Yeah, but this is not a day for politics for me. This is a
day for celebrating. This is a day for peace, happiness for me.

SIEGEL: But the question that’s been raised is is the Nobel Prize for
literature in some cases tinged with politics? You don’t see it that
way.

Mr. PAMUK: I don’t know. That’s not the point today for me, really.

SIEGEL: You related a story back in The Black Book some years ago
that I always loved. It was about the man who made perfect mannequins
of Turks in Ottoman Turkey. You recall the story?

Mr. PAMUK: Yes. That story was in Black Book, which is one of my
early books perhaps, which I painstakingly found my style and my
subject matter, whether that story or others is the painful
combination of things that are coming from tradition, the Western
world, and things that come from West Europe.

My whole book, my whole life, is a testimony to the fact that East
and West actually combine, come together gracefully and produce
something new. That is what I have been trying to do all my life,
trying to prove.

SIEGEL: While you have been writing with that intent, others have
been theorizing about clashes of civilizations.

Mr. PAMUK: I don’t believe in clashes of civilizations. I think that
was a fanciful idea which, unfortunately, is sometimes coming to be
true. But no, I think that East and West meet. I think that my whole
work is a testimony to the fact that we should find ways of looking,
combining East and West without any clash, but with harmony, with
grace, and produce something new for humanity.

SIEGEL: Do you think that that award of the Nobel Prize to you, a
Turkish novelist, might assist not only you, but other Turkish
writers?

Mr. PAMUK: Of course.

SIEGEL: In gaining the respect in Turkey that you’re allowed to,
example, voice unpopular opinions and shouldn’t be thrown into court
for it.

Mr. PAMUK: First, I look at this. That it will encourage all the
aspiring young authors, all the young people who want to write in
remote corners of the world where readership is rather small. But of
course, I believe in that.

SIEGEL: What are you working on now?

Mr. PAMUK: I’ve been working on a love novel for the last four years.
The title is Museum of Innocence, but I may not find some time to
finish it these days, but I’m very optimistic. This prize will never
change my working habits. I will work ten hours a day, as I have been
doing the last 32 years.

SIEGEL: Ten hours a day.

Mr. PAMUK: Not much, you know? A day is 24 hours.

SIEGEL: Mr. Pamuk, thank you very much for talking with us.

Mr. PAMUK: I thank you.

SIEGEL: Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, winner of this year’s Nobel Prize
for literature. He spoke to us from New York City. In that interview
I mentioned the story that he related years ago in a book about a
great mannequin maker in Istanbul, a character who ran afoul first of
religion and then of fashion. Elsewhere in the program, you can hear
a reading of that passage.