Orhan Pamuk receives the Nobel Prize for Literature: the joys of an addicted reader

Last Christmas my Greek friend, Apostolis brought me a special gift from his vacation trip to the Berlin bookstalls, a book written from one of the best known contemporary Turkish novelists, Orhan Pamuk. At that time this name was barely known to me. The book was Snow. Curious about the debate surrounding the figure of Pamuk even before his notorious judicial process, I quickly scanned Snow, only to be obliged later to read it once again more carefully. That was my first encounter with the work of the literary genius. Later on I followed closely as he sailed clear of the charges brought to him of offending Turkishness, through denouncing the Armenian genocide and the harsh treatment of the Kurdish minority. This is considered a crime according to Article 301 of the Turkish penal code and it is punishable up to three years in jail. The European Community intervened in time using its influential leverage on a country still committed to the process of integration despite several challenges of a multiple nature.
Indeed the writer seems to have experienced a strenuous time. Interviewed by immediately after receiving the news about his Nobel, this is how he replies to adelicate question:
“You’re the first ever Turkish writer to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature. Does that give the award a special significance for you?
[OP] – Well, unfortunately, that makes the thing very precious in Turkey, which is good for Turkey of course, getting this prize, but makes it more extra sensitive and political and it somehow tends to make it as a sort of a burden.”
What I have to add about Pamuk, without wanting to be repetitive of the many literary analysis that have accompanied his work and recently his Nobel Prize, regards his other less known book: Istanbul: a memoir and the city. This hidden treasure is perhaps the key to understanding where this author’s miraculous muse comes from. His unique and breathtaking love about the city where he was born, and where he has spent his entire life, comes up in the very reason why was awarded the Nobel Prize. Leafing through the book, which I found by pure chance (just like one finds the best things in life), you can not miss the magic created by the biographical account of Pamuk set in the magical, transcendent city that holds the gates of East and West, past and future. This is what he has to say about it: “There were times when every strange memento seemed saturated with the poetic melancholy of lost imperial greatness and its historical residue that I imagined myself to be the only one to have unlocked the secret of the city.” (Istanbul: a Memoir and the City, 2003, p.353)
Istanbul is for him the absolute and essential metaphor for the coming together of a curious mix of cultural elements, the very essence of a beautiful and socially charged duality. In a sincere plea to soften the conceited dichotomies labeled as clash of civilizations, he says: “Istanbul, in fact, and my work, is a testimony to the fact that East and West combine cultural gracefully, or sometimes in an anarchic way, came together, and that is what we should search for.”
It is in this atmosphere of recurrent inspiration that Pamuk composes his works where history, reality and a magic collective melancholy that he calls “huzun” (in Turkish) are the threads that come together in forming the literary fabric of his books.
A sharp social commentator, he has found new ways in portraying the harsh dichotomies that condition the political and intellectual life of his country. He has explored with maturity and sensitivity the complex configuration of the ideological prisms in turkey, splitting his attention between secularism, religious extremism, military influence, leftist utopias, collective spirits and individual quests. Hence the fiber of his work wraps around many layers of the human consciousness: “Although the opportunities for happiness were limitless and hardly a day passed without my discovering a new pleasure, life was also full of sudden, unexpected fast-flaming disasters of every size and shade of importance. The randomness of these disasters reminded me of the radio maritime announcement, warning all shipping (and the rest of us too) about “free-floating mines” at the mouth of the Bosphorus and giving their precise location.” (p.199) Borrowing his own words I would say that Pamuk through his work is “savoring the ordinary but still honoring the ideal.”
Pamuk usually shrouds his impressive works under simple titles like The white castle, The black book, My name is Red, The new life.
When the Swedish Academy declared that “The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2006 is awarded to the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures”,I jumped form joy. I could not wait to share my limited knowledge about the author ad his work with everyone around. I called this the typical joy of an addicted reader when she sees the books that influenced her mindset and opened her cultural and spiritual horizon to new, recognized at the universal level. It is with the same joy that I expect the Albanian translation of My name is Red, the book that first launched his name in the international arena, that will be realized soon by the Scanderbeg Books publishing house.