"SNOW", A NOVEL BY ORHAN PAMUK, WAS TRANSLATED INTO ARMENIAN
PanARMENIAN.Net
07.05.2009 20:15 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A novel having the greatest demand in Europe, Orhan
Pamuk’s "Snow" is now available to the Armenian reader thanks to Hakob
Soghomonyan who spent two years for translating the book. Knowing
about it beforehand, the author refused honorary payments.
As mentioned by Lilit Grigoryan, Head of Armenian National and Cultural
Society, the novel published in 1000 copies was translated from
Russian, as there are no Turkish literature translators in Armenia.
During the presentation ceremony, Rouben Hovsepyan, writer and editor
of "Droshak" newspaper noted, "With his novel, Orhan Pamuk revealed
the callous Armenian trace seen from behind the snow covering the
historical Armenian town no longer populated by Armenians."
"Apart from its cognitive value, the novel also reveals realities
never described by any Turkish writer so far," Lilit Galstyan added.
The developments take place in Kars. A young Turkish poet permanently
residing in Germany arrives there to investigate suicides of young
women who ended their lives as sign of protest against constraint
on Muslim headscarves. The sudden snowfall brings the author face to
face with popular uprising caused by Turkish government’s unrestrained
desire to Europeanize the Muslim state. In addition to the 1000 copies
published in Eastern Armenian language, the Western Armenian version
of the book will be published in Lebanon in 500 examples.
A contemporary Turkish writer and laureate of several national and
international awards, Ferit Orhan Pamuk was awarded a Nobel Prize
in Literature in 2006. In 2005, the Turkish Government sued him for
making the following statement in an interview with the Swiss Das
Magazin periodical (February 2005), "One million Armenians and thirty
thousand Kurds were murdered in Turkey. Nobody voices the fact, and
I am hated because I speak about it." The writer currently resides
in New York. His works are available in more than 40 languages.