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Orhan Pamuk. Photo by David Shankbone. .

Top 10 Facts about Orhan Pamuk

Ferit Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic writer, and 2006 noble prize winner in literacy. He is a high-profile figure in Turkey, due to his support for Kurdish political rights.

He is a cultural Muslim who associates historical and cultural identification with religion while not believing in a personal connection to God.

He is the most prominent novelist, his works have sold over 13 million books in sixty-three languages, making him the country’s best-selling writer.

1 He is of Partial Circassian Descent and was Born in Istanbul

He was born on 7^th June 1952, to a musician father Gunduz Pamuk, and his mother   Sekure Pamuk.

He grew up in a wealthy yet declining upper-class family, an experience he describes passing in his novels the black book and Cevdet Bey and his Sons.

 His elder brother, Sevket Pamuk, a professor of economics, sometimes appears as a fictional character in Orhan Pamuk’s works.

His younger half-sister Humeyra Pamuk, a journalist by profession is also a writer.

His paternal grandmother was Circassian. The Circassian is an indigenous Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation native to the historical country-region of Circassia(Modern day Europe).

2 He Left the Architecture School to Become a Full-time Writer

Orhan attended  Robert College secondary a highly independent and co-educational high school in Istanbul.

Thereafter he enrolled in Istanbul Technical university to study Architecture, which he considered close to his dream career of painting.

However, he left the architecture school after three years to become a full-time writer and graduated from the Institute of Journalism at the University of Istanbul in 1976.

3 He is a Divorcee

Pamuk was initially married to Aylin Türegün in 1982 and they divorced in 2001. They have a daughter named Rüya.

Orhan has publicly acknowledged his relationship with Kiran Desai, Booker prize winner of Indian origin Asli AkyavaÅŸ. In 2011 and they got married in a private wedding on  April 2022.

4. He is the First Turkish Noble laureate

Front side (obverse) of one of the Nobel Prize medals Photo by Jonathuder & Erik Lindberg. . 

The search for identity in the board land between western and eastern values, an attempt to understand differences and similarities, and an ambivalent yearning for both modern and old traditions are the main factors that characterized Pamuk’s novel.

He made his debut with the novel, Cevdet Bey and His Sons, 1982.

It was a novel with measured and meticulous prose, set in the backdrop of the last days of an empire and the slow and troubling rise of a young republic spanning three generations of a large family and their social connections

Orhan Pamuk was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures.

5. He is a Visiting Professor at Columbia

A signage on 116th Street of Columbia University on a Subway Station. Photo by Youngking11.

In 2006, Pamuk returned. the U.S. and took visiting professor position at the University of Columbia, and as a fellow with Columbia’s Committee on Global Thought and held an appointment in Columbia’s Middle East and Asian Languages and cultures department and its School of the Arts.

He returned to jointly teach comparative literature classes with Andreas Huyssen and David Damrosch.

6. He is Among Elected members of the American Philosophical Society

In 2018 he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society, an American Scholarly Organization that promotes research.

It is a society of elected body of scholars from all different disciplines. It has approximately 1,000 elected Members.

7. His Works are also Redolent with Discussion and Fascination with the Creative Arts

His work often touches on the deep-rooted tensions between East and West and tradition and modernism/ secularism.

The angel of inspiration is the key point when Pamuk discusses his creativity.

They are often disturbing or unsettling and include complex plots and characters.

8 He Faced Over His Sentiments on the Armenian Genocide     

In 2005, a criminal case was opened against the author based on a complaint filed by Ultra-nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsi, after Pamuk made a statement in an interview with the Swiss publication Das Magazin regarding the Armenian genocide and mass killing of Kurds.

However, Kemal Kerincsiz appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal which ordered the court in Sisli to re-open the case. 

The charges against Pamuk caused an international outcry.

The European Parliament on 30th November announced that it would send a delegation to observe the trial. While Amnesty International released a statement on 1^st December calling for the release of Pamuk and six other people awaiting trial.

On  22nd January 2006  the charges were dropped, after Turkey’s Justice Ministry refused to issue an approval of the prosecution, saying that they had no authority to open a case against Pamuk under the new penal code.

9 He Opened the Museum of Innocence

The building Hosting Museum of Innocence. Photo By Lambiam. Wikimedia.

In August 2008 he published “The Museum of Innocence”  a storyline about a rich young man Kemal, who falls in love with a poor girl Fusum and their lives take different paths and they separate. To re-unite the young man breaks his engagement and seeks his lover who eventually divorces her husband.

In 2012, he also opened the Museum of Innocence in a 19-century house in Istanbul, as a companion to his novel of the same name.

The narrative and the museum offer a glimpse into upper-class Istanbul life from the 1970s to the early 2000s.

It consists of a series of displays, each corresponding to one of the 83 chapters in his novel.

In 2014, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award.

Pamuk collaborated on a documentary, The Innocence of Memories, that expanded on his Museum of Innocence.

10 His Latest Book, Nights of Plague Resonates with the Covid-19 Pandemic

He published his latest book, Night of Plague, in a timely arrival when the world can resonate with a plague outbreak on a fictional Ottoman island as it scrambles to end the unprecedented plague of the 21st century, The COVID-19 pandemic.

The book, Nights of Plague, tells the stories of an Ottoman governor, a doctor, and an army major, fighting a plague epidemic on a fictional Ottoman Island called Minger. It resonates with various professionals involved in crisis management in the global covid 19 pandemic.