Orhan Pamuk

After school, Pamuk studied journalism and architecture at the Technical University of his hometown. After initially being interested in painting, he discovered his talent for writing in the mid-1970s. Pamuk soon presented his first novel, which won an award in 1979 and was published in 1982. Just a year later, his next novel was published under the title "Sessiz Ev" (1983), which received the "Prix de la découverte européenne" in its French translation in 1991. In 1985 Pamuk moved to New York to teach at Columbia University until 1988. In 1988 he returned to Istanbul. The novel "Beyaz Kale", published in Turkey in 1985, was awarded the "Independent Award for Foreign Fiction" in 1990. In the same year it was also published in German translation under the title "The White Fortress".

Pamuk celebrated his greatest success in Turkey in 1994 with the publication of the novel "Yeni Hayat", which was also published in German in 1998. For his next work, which was published in 1998 as a historical novel under the title "Benim Ad...", he was awarded the "IMPAC Dublin Award" in 2003. The liberal Turkish writer published his first political novel, "Kar", in 2002, whose German translation under the title "Schnee" received great attention in the German-speaking cultural circle in 2005. The work ironically addresses taboo topics in the recent history and present of Turkish society, especially the presence of Islamist tendencies and the murder of Armenians and Kurds. Through this openness, Pamuk provoked controversial reactions in Turkey, including demonstrations and death threats organized against him. Pamuk's work has already been translated into 34 languages and has a total circulation of more than one million copies.

In the Western world he is now considered the "Umberto Eco of Turkey". In 2005, Pamuk was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which was presented to him in October 2005 in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. At the same time, the writer was also honored with the Ricardo Huch Prize from the city of Darmstadt for his contribution to European international understanding. At the end of August 2005 it became known that the Turkish writer was threatened with a prison sentence of up to three years in his homeland for "publicly denigrating Turkishness": Pamuk had criticized the Turkish genocide against Armenians and Kurds in an interview with a Swiss newspaper, which is why he declared himself a prisoner He was due to stand trial in an Istanbul court at the end of 2005. The case against him was dropped in January 2006. In December 2006, the Turkish writer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Orhan Pamuk is married and has a daughter.