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NOBEL AUTHOR: MY WORDS CAN SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
By Elizabeth Gudrais
Journal State House Bureau
Providence Journal, RI
Nov 15 2006
PROVIDENCE - Speaking at Brown University last night, the novelist
who brought Turkey its first Nobel Prize sought to turn attention to
his writing, rather than his actions.
Even during a panel discussion on censorship and freedom of expression,
Orhan Pamuk spoke of broad trends, rather than the situation in his
home country.
Pamuk, 54, won the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, and the Swedish
Academy, which confers the prizes, gave only literary reasons in
its announcement. Still, there was a political subtext to giving
the award to Pamuk. He was charged last year with insulting Turkish
identity by denouncing, in an interview with a Swiss magazine, the
Ottoman Empire's mass killing of Armenians during World War I. After
much publicity, and speculation that restraining free speech might
jeopardize Turkey's entry to the European Union, the case against
Pamuk was dropped on a technicality in January.
The salt-and-pepper-haired Pamuk answered audience questions on his
craft with considerably more fervor than he did questions on politics,
nationalism, Turkish identity and the like. At one point, he quipped,
"The real punishment the Turkish state gave me was political questions
like this."
In an interview after the Nobel announcement last month, Pamuk told
The New York Times he is "essentially a literary man who has fallen
into a political situation." Fittingly, he sidestepped one pointed
question last night.
A student began by saying that Pamuk's novel The New Life had changed
her life - as in the novel's first line, which reads, "I read a book
one day and my whole life was changed." The student said she read it
in Turkish at age 14, that it was "the first serious book" she read,
and that it opened the world of literature to her.
Then, she asked Pamuk whether, in the interview that prompted the
charges against him in Turkey, he deliberately avoided using the word
genocide. (The heart of the controversy is that the Turkish government
denies the killings constituted genocide.)
Pamuk's aggravated response: "Can I pull myself out of this question
for awhile?
"I don't want to go into it," he said, then went on to the next
question.
The discussion - part of Brown's weeklong event titled "Strange Times,
My Dear: A Freedom-to-Write Literary Festival" - offered insight into
the way Pamuk views his work.
Pamuk aspired as a child to become a painter and attended, but did not
finish, architecture school. He said yesterday that he sees himself as
"a visual writer." With some authors, he said, "narration of the drama
and dialogue are more important to them than painting the picture." In
his case, he said he would write a murder scene including a description
of the flowers growing in the field alongside the body, as well as a
description of the corpse itself. " 'There's a killing and a lot of
blood all over' - I'm not that kind of writer," he said.
The discussion also offered delightful tidbits about Pamuk's methods.
For instance, he's no longer a night person. Pamuk said he used to
write consistently until 4 a.m. and sleep consistently until noon,
but that has changed since his daughter, Ruya, was born in 1991. He
now wakes around 5 a.m. to write for a couple of hours before waking
Ruya and taking her to school, he said.
Pamuk also said he still writes his manuscripts by hand. By the time
the computer became a household fixture, he said, "I was already
writing for 20 years. I decided I didn't want to change."
He said he tried a computer, but found the light from the screen hurt
his eyes. "It's like writing in front of an aquarium," he said.
Before the solo question-and-answer session, Pamuk participated in a
panel discussion - titled "Warning: Writing May Be Hazardous to Your
Health" - alongside three other authors who have faced censorship of,
and persecution for, their writing.
Pierre Mumbere Mujomba, the Congolese author of The Last Envelope,
a commentary on the excesses of the Mobutu regime in the former Zaire,
spoke about how writers, musicians, journalists and religious leaders
are all censored in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Iranian writer Shahrnush Parsipur spoke about how she was imprisoned
four times for her writings, which are banned in her home country,
available only on the black market.
She and fellow Iranian author Shahryar Mandanipour said freedom of
expression is blatantly repressed in Iran, but that such repression
exists elsewhere, including in the United States, in less blatant
forms. They said writers may be silenced just as effectively by
inspiring a climate of fear through surveillance and government
secrecy as by throwing writers in jail or executing them.
"In Iran, it's very clear," Parsipur said. "In other countries,
it's hidden."
As chairwoman of the Writers in Prison Committee for International PEN,
a group that supports freedom of expression, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman
publicizes the cases of writers imprisoned, or threatened with prison
sentences, for their writings, and advocates for those writers'
release.
She said yesterday that she sees her work as "insisting on the role
of the individual in society," and as a celebration of the power of
the individual vis-À-vis society.
"You can imprison a person's body," Leedom-Ackerman said. "You can
confiscate his computer. You can burn all his books. You can torture
him. You cannot - cannot - take away his imagination."
The festival continues today with a panel on trends in Iranian
literature and readings by Mandanipour and Parsipur. Salman Rushdie,
the Indian author who went into hiding after Ayatollah Khamenei of
Iran called Rushdie's The Satanic Verses blasphemous against Islam
and offered a bounty for Rushdie's death, will speak tomorrow and
give two readings on Friday. The festival concludes Friday evening
with screenings of several Iranian films.
The full schedule is available at brown.edu/web/strange_times/ or by
calling the Brown events office at (401) 863-2474.
--Boundary_(ID_/G30U64u+zWGbBFTjbjzZA)- -
By Elizabeth Gudrais
Journal State House Bureau
Providence Journal, RI
Nov 15 2006
PROVIDENCE - Speaking at Brown University last night, the novelist
who brought Turkey its first Nobel Prize sought to turn attention to
his writing, rather than his actions.
Even during a panel discussion on censorship and freedom of expression,
Orhan Pamuk spoke of broad trends, rather than the situation in his
home country.
Pamuk, 54, won the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, and the Swedish
Academy, which confers the prizes, gave only literary reasons in
its announcement. Still, there was a political subtext to giving
the award to Pamuk. He was charged last year with insulting Turkish
identity by denouncing, in an interview with a Swiss magazine, the
Ottoman Empire's mass killing of Armenians during World War I. After
much publicity, and speculation that restraining free speech might
jeopardize Turkey's entry to the European Union, the case against
Pamuk was dropped on a technicality in January.
The salt-and-pepper-haired Pamuk answered audience questions on his
craft with considerably more fervor than he did questions on politics,
nationalism, Turkish identity and the like. At one point, he quipped,
"The real punishment the Turkish state gave me was political questions
like this."
In an interview after the Nobel announcement last month, Pamuk told
The New York Times he is "essentially a literary man who has fallen
into a political situation." Fittingly, he sidestepped one pointed
question last night.
A student began by saying that Pamuk's novel The New Life had changed
her life - as in the novel's first line, which reads, "I read a book
one day and my whole life was changed." The student said she read it
in Turkish at age 14, that it was "the first serious book" she read,
and that it opened the world of literature to her.
Then, she asked Pamuk whether, in the interview that prompted the
charges against him in Turkey, he deliberately avoided using the word
genocide. (The heart of the controversy is that the Turkish government
denies the killings constituted genocide.)
Pamuk's aggravated response: "Can I pull myself out of this question
for awhile?
"I don't want to go into it," he said, then went on to the next
question.
The discussion - part of Brown's weeklong event titled "Strange Times,
My Dear: A Freedom-to-Write Literary Festival" - offered insight into
the way Pamuk views his work.
Pamuk aspired as a child to become a painter and attended, but did not
finish, architecture school. He said yesterday that he sees himself as
"a visual writer." With some authors, he said, "narration of the drama
and dialogue are more important to them than painting the picture." In
his case, he said he would write a murder scene including a description
of the flowers growing in the field alongside the body, as well as a
description of the corpse itself. " 'There's a killing and a lot of
blood all over' - I'm not that kind of writer," he said.
The discussion also offered delightful tidbits about Pamuk's methods.
For instance, he's no longer a night person. Pamuk said he used to
write consistently until 4 a.m. and sleep consistently until noon,
but that has changed since his daughter, Ruya, was born in 1991. He
now wakes around 5 a.m. to write for a couple of hours before waking
Ruya and taking her to school, he said.
Pamuk also said he still writes his manuscripts by hand. By the time
the computer became a household fixture, he said, "I was already
writing for 20 years. I decided I didn't want to change."
He said he tried a computer, but found the light from the screen hurt
his eyes. "It's like writing in front of an aquarium," he said.
Before the solo question-and-answer session, Pamuk participated in a
panel discussion - titled "Warning: Writing May Be Hazardous to Your
Health" - alongside three other authors who have faced censorship of,
and persecution for, their writing.
Pierre Mumbere Mujomba, the Congolese author of The Last Envelope,
a commentary on the excesses of the Mobutu regime in the former Zaire,
spoke about how writers, musicians, journalists and religious leaders
are all censored in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Iranian writer Shahrnush Parsipur spoke about how she was imprisoned
four times for her writings, which are banned in her home country,
available only on the black market.
She and fellow Iranian author Shahryar Mandanipour said freedom of
expression is blatantly repressed in Iran, but that such repression
exists elsewhere, including in the United States, in less blatant
forms. They said writers may be silenced just as effectively by
inspiring a climate of fear through surveillance and government
secrecy as by throwing writers in jail or executing them.
"In Iran, it's very clear," Parsipur said. "In other countries,
it's hidden."
As chairwoman of the Writers in Prison Committee for International PEN,
a group that supports freedom of expression, Joanne Leedom-Ackerman
publicizes the cases of writers imprisoned, or threatened with prison
sentences, for their writings, and advocates for those writers'
release.
She said yesterday that she sees her work as "insisting on the role
of the individual in society," and as a celebration of the power of
the individual vis-À-vis society.
"You can imprison a person's body," Leedom-Ackerman said. "You can
confiscate his computer. You can burn all his books. You can torture
him. You cannot - cannot - take away his imagination."
The festival continues today with a panel on trends in Iranian
literature and readings by Mandanipour and Parsipur. Salman Rushdie,
the Indian author who went into hiding after Ayatollah Khamenei of
Iran called Rushdie's The Satanic Verses blasphemous against Islam
and offered a bounty for Rushdie's death, will speak tomorrow and
give two readings on Friday. The festival concludes Friday evening
with screenings of several Iranian films.
The full schedule is available at brown.edu/web/strange_times/ or by
calling the Brown events office at (401) 863-2474.
--Boundary_(ID_/G30U64u+zWGbBFTjbjzZA)- -