The 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature..

[Princess Turandot]

The 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to Orhan Pamuk, from Turkey.

"who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures"

(Nobel Prize Website: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/

Pegasos Author's Calendar describes him as "Postmodernist Turkish novelist, a leading voice in contemporary fiction, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. Pamuk has portrayed the complex interaction between the traditional values of Islam and the European world....Pamuk was awarded in 2005 the German Book Trade's Peace Prize. In the same year the author was charged with insulting the Turkish Republic. An outspoken critic of Turkey’s treatment of its Kurdish minority, Pamuk was quoted as saying in Das Magazin, a Swiss newspaper, "thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it." As a result, Pamuk's books were burned at a nationalist demonstration. In his acceptance speech of the prize Pamuk stated that "The fuelling of anti-Turkish sentiment in Europe is resulting in an anti-European, indiscriminate nationalism in Turkey." Charges against Pamuk were dropped in January 2006. EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said that the decision was "good news for freedom of expression in Turkey".

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/pamuk.htm

[Captain Hilts]

1. I wish they'd give the title of the book in their release. I guess it's..

"Istanbul," but I thought that was non-fiction.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. It's not awarded for a single book, but a body of work

Here's their summary:

Pamuk has said that growing up, he experienced a shift from a traditional Ottoman family environment to a more Western-oriented lifestyle. He wrote about this in his first published novel, a family chronicle entitled Cevdet Bey Ve Oğulları (1982), which in the spirit of Thomas Mann follows the development of a family over three generations.

His second novel, Sessiz Ev (1983; The House of Silence, 1998), uses five different narrator perspectives to describe a situation in which several family members visit their ageing grandmother at a popular seaside resort with Turkey teetering on the brink of civil war. The period is 1980. The grandchildren’s political discussions and their friendships reflect a social chaos where various extremist organisations vie for power.

Pamuk’s international breakthrough came with his third novel, Beyaz Kale (1985; The White Castle, 1992). It is structured as an historical novel set in 17th-century Istanbul, but its content is primarily a story about how our ego builds on stories and fictions of different sorts. Personality is shown to be a variable construction. The story’s main character, a Venetian sold as a slave to the young scholar Hodja, finds in Hodja his own reflection. As the two men recount their life stories to each other, there occurs an exchange of identities. It is perhaps, on a symbolic level, the European novel captured then allied with an alien culture.

Pamuk’s writing has become known for its play with identities and doubles. The issue appears in his novel Kara Kitap (1990; The Black Book, 1995) in which the protagonist searches the hubbub of Istanbul for his vanished wife and her half-brother, with whom he later exchanges identities. Frequent references to the mystic tradition of the East make it natural to see this in a Sufi perspective. Kara Kitap represented a definite break with the governing social realism in Turkish literature. It provoked debate in Turkey not least through its Sufism references. Pamuk based his screenplay for the film Gizli Yüz (1992) on the novel.

...

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/pamuk-bibl.pdf

Also, non-fiction counts too. For instance, Winston Churchill won it, for his histories of Britain and the Second World War.

[Captain Hilts]

3. Thanks! I tried to get through The Black Book...

and eventually gave up. I got two-third through and it just didn't go anywhere.

[non sociopath skin]

4. Though the committee would doubtless deny it, I suspect ...

... there's often a small-p political agenda in the literature prize.

Thus, Churchill - never more than a workmanlike writer - got his for helping to win the war against Naziism (They couldn't really give him the Peace Prize, could they?).

Likewise, Pamuk is at odds with the political conservatives in his own country.

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Certainly true in Churchill's case

and yes, probably true in this one too - and perhaps with Pinter last year (though that may have been a case of his recent political writing reminding the committee of his earlier work, and that maybe he'd been waiting too long).

[AngryAmish]

5. This is crap

Until William Trevor wins then the Noble Prize for Literature is a sick joke.

[bemildred]

7. Turkish author Orhan Pamuk wins Nobel prize for literature

STOCKHOLM - Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's best-known novelist and incendiary social commentator, won the 2006 Nobel prize for Literature on Thursday.

In its citation for the 10 million Swedish crown prize, the Swedish
Academy said: "In the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city, has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures."

Pamuk, who just months ago went on trial for insulting "Turkishness," was the first author in the Muslim world to condemn the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.

The Academy said his international breakthrough came with his third book, "Beyaz Kale" or "The White Castle," a historical novel about the relationship of a Venetian slave with the young scholar who buys him, and their gradual blurring of identities.

Haaretz

[JCMach1]

12. CYLRC loves his stuff....

[brentspeak]

8. Who?

[Orrin_73]

9. They didn't give him the nobel prize for being a

good writer but because of his political views.

[stanwyck]

10. I read "Snow"...and it was like slogging

through a blizzard.

[Diogenes2]

11. Try ISTANBUL...

it's excellent.

[Stockholm]

13. True and false

The body of work of the "artist" is the foundation but of course the structure of the academy is also important in the selection. I am very happy that a poet was elected this year as a new member since it increases the chance that my favourite poet Thomas Tranströmer eventually will recieve the prize. The academy now have a larger proportion writers than historically.

Another important factor is that the prize can only be given to someone who is alive, that could have been a contributing factor that H. Pinter got it last year. I am sure there are several writers/poets etc. who should have recieved the prize but failed to live long enough.

Link to the biobibliographical note of Mr. Pamuk:

http://www.svenskaakademien.se/LitiumDokument20/GetDocument.asp?archive=1&directory=36&document=426

Link to the Swedish Academy:

http://www.svenskaakademien.se/LitiumInformation/site/page.asp?Page=3&IncPage=158&Destination=158

[bemildred]

14. Nobelist's Voice Goes Beyond His Books

ISTANBUL, Turkey — Not so long ago, novelist Orhan Pamuk faced imprisonment in his homeland of Turkey. On Thursday, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for novels of rich melancholy that evoke what the Swedish Academy called "new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures."

A best-selling and provocative author in Turkey who has steadily gained an international following, Pamuk is also seen by his supporters as a courageous, if sometimes reluctant, champion of free expression.

Speaking from New York, where he is teaching at Columbia University, Pamuk said, "This is first of all an honor bestowed upon the Turkish language, Turkish culture and Turkey itself, as well as on my writings … which I produced solitary in my room."

---

My writing shows that East and West can combine — that is what we have to wish for, to hope for. The fact that the image of Turkish culture does not exist in Western literature doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nobel13oct13,1,514275.story?coll=la-headlines-world

[MrCoffee]

15. Pamuk is a FANTASTIC writer...this is such good news!

I love his work. I can't recommend him highly enough.