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Turkish Writer Picks up German Peace Prize

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  • Turkish Writer Picks up German Peace Prize

    Deutsche Welle, Germany
    June 23 2005

    Turkish Writer Picks up German Peace Prize

    A literary ambassador for Turkey

    Turkey's best-selling novelist Orhan Pamuk has been awarded the
    German Book Trade's Peace Prize, reflecting a growing awareness that
    many of the issues preoccupying Turkey these days have a profound
    global resonance.

    Just one week after demonstrations took place in Berlin against the
    German parliament's resolution in memory of the massacre of Armenians
    by Turks in 1915, Germany has awarded one of its most prestigious
    cultural prizes to Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, an outspoken critic of
    his country's inability to own up to its often harrowing history.

    Born in 1952, Pamuk grew up among Turkey's secular upper classes.
    After spending several years in New York, he was given a mixed
    reception when he returned to Istanbul, the city where he was born.
    The country's Islamic intellectuals accused him of exploiting
    religious and historical themes to pander to Western tastes. Still,
    however progressive and pro-European he may be, his support of
    Turkey's westward development is far from unconditional.

    Admirers see his work as a rejection of a recent intellectual
    tradition that aspires to be western by ignoring the past. "If you
    try to repress memories, something always comes back," Pamuk once
    said in an interview with Time magazine. "I'm what comes back."


    A love-hate relationship

    According to the selection board that chose Pamuk, in novels such as
    "Snow" (2002), "he follows the historical traces of the West in the
    East and of the East in the West in a way no other writer does."

    He enjoys both commercial success and critical acclaim in his home
    country. His 1990 novel "Kara Kitap" is widely seen as one of the
    most controversial and popular readings in Turkish literature.

    But despite his phenomenal popularity, Turkey itself has a love-hate
    relationship with Pamuk. Nationalist groups angry at his criticism of
    Turkey's treatment of its Kurdish minority want to see his books
    removed from public libraries.

    And while many welcome the attention he brings Turkey as its literary
    ambassador, others envy his international stature. "There is a lot of
    jealousy that Orhan Pamuk has been translated into so many
    languages," said one anonymous source in an interview in the
    Tagesspiegel newspaper.

    Yavus Baydar from the newspaper Sabah has described the award as
    "very significant for freedom of speech in Turkey." He knows what
    he's talking about. Earlier this year, he asked Pamuk to write an
    article for Sabah about South Korea. After it was published, he was
    bombarded with outraged readers' mail, accusing him of having given a
    voce to a "traitor."


    A relevant writer

    The prize jury's decision continues a tradition of honoring writers
    whose works have a topical significance. In 2003, US essayist Susan
    Sontag (photo) received the award for her reflections on the fragile
    state of post 9/11 trans-Atlantic relations. A year later, the
    selection of Hungarian novelist Peter Esterhazy came shortly after
    the EU's eastwards enlargement. In 2005, the choice of Pamuk serves
    as a reminder of just how much Turkey and Turkish issues factor into
    Germany's political and cultural debate.

    "My novel ("Snow") is about the inner conflicts of modern Turks," he
    told Die Zeit in April. "It's about the contradictions between Islam
    and modernism and the desire to be integrated into Europe -- and the
    simultaneous fear."

    In 1998, Ankara wanted to present him with Turkey's highest cultural
    accolade, the title of state artist. He rejected the honor. "For
    years I have been criticizing the state for putting authors in jail,
    for only trying to solve the Kurdish problem by force, and for its
    narrow-minded nationalism," said Pamuk. "I don't know why they tried
    to give me the prize."

    This time, though, Pamuk will be accepting his award -- at the
    Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
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