Lonely Planet İstanbul Guide

ORHAN PAMUK When the much-fêted Orhan Pamuk (b 1952) was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, the international cultural sector was largely unsurprised. The writing of the İstanbul-born, US-based novelist had already attracted critical accolades, including the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, The Independent newspaper’s Foreign Fiction Award of the Month and every local literary prize on offer. In their citation, the Nobel judges said that in his ‘quest for the melancholic soul of his native city’ (ie İstanbul), Pamuk had ‘discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of culture’. The only voices heard to criticise their judgement hailed from Turkey. Pamuk had been charged with ‘insulting Turkishness’ under Article 301 of the Turkish Criminal Code (the charges were dropped in early 2006), and some local commentators alleged that in his case the Nobel Prize was awarded for political (ie freedom of speech) reasons rather than purely on the merit of his literary oeuvre. Pamuk has written 10 novels to date. His first, Cevdet Bey & His Sons (1982), is a dynastic saga of the İstanbul bourgeoisie. It was followed by The House of Silence (1983), The White Castle (1985) and The Black Book (1990). The latter was made into a film (Gizli Yuz) by director Omer Kavur in 1992. After this came The New Life (1995), My Name is Red (1998) , Snow (2002) , The Museum of Innocence (2009), A Strangeness in His Mind (2015) and The Red-Haired Woman (2016). In 2005 he published a memoir, Istanbul: Memories of a City, about the city he loves. In 2012 Pamuk opened the Museum of Innocence, his conceptual art project occupying an entire house in Cihangir. This was inspired by his novel of the same name, and has proved to be popular with locals and tourists alike. Grant Gee’s 2015 documentary film Innocence of Memories: Orhan Pamuk’s Museum and Istanbul, which is narrated by Pamuk, is set in the museum and at locations featured in the novel. Contemporary Novelists The second half of the 20th century saw a raft of İstanbul-based writers and poets published locally and internationally. Many were socialists, communists or outspoken critics of the government, and spent long and repeated periods in jail. The two most famous were Nâzım Hikmet (1902– 63), whose masterwork is the five-volume collection of lyric and epic poetry entitled Human Landscapes from My Country; and Yaşar Kemal (b