PAMUK SAYS HE’S NOT A WRITER IN EXILE

Reuters UK
May 29 2007

HAY-ON-WYE (Reuters) – Nobel prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan
Pamuk, threatened by a suspect in the murder of a journalist, said on
Tuesday he had recently been in Turkey and did not consider himself
a writer in exile.

The 2006 Literature Laureate’s safety became an issue after
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered in Istanbul
in January.

A key suspect warned Pamuk to be careful and some media reports had
said Pamuk was living in exile.

However, Pamuk, who won the Nobel for novels including "Snow" and
"My Name is Red", told an audience at the Hay literature festival in
Britain he had recently visited Turkey.

Asked about suggestions he was a writer in exile, he said, "There is
some political pressure on me. I was just in Turkey. There were some
misunderstandings and clarifying these misunderstandings took some
energy but we should not dwell on them too much here."

Pamuk was prosecuted in 2005 under laws restricting freedom of
expression in Turkey after telling a Swiss newspaper that 1 million
Armenians had died in Turkey in World War One and 30,000 Kurds had
perished more recently.

Charges against him were dropped after his case triggered criticism
from the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join.

Pamuk said he planned to publish his next novel, "Museum of Innocence",
about an upper-middle class man in contemporary Istanbul obsessed
with a cousin, in Turkey in December.