Pamuk, Orhan 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born June 7, 1952, in Turkey; son of a civil engineer; married Aylin Tofajjal Turegen (a historian), 1982 (divorced, 2001); children: Ruya (daughter). Education: Attended Istanbul Technical College; graduated from Robert College; graduated from University of Istanbul, Institute of Journalism, (Istanbul, Turkey), 1976; University of Iowa, Iowa Writer's Workshop, 1985.

CAREER:

Novelist, essayist, short story writer, educator, and lecturer. University of Iowa, Iowa City, visiting writer fellow, 1985; Columbia University, New York, NY, visiting scholar, 1985-88, visiting professor, 2006—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Milliyet Literary Prize, co-recipient, 1979; Orhan Kemal Prize, 1983, for Cevdet Bey ve ogullari; Madarali Novel Prize, 1984, for Sessiz ev; Independent Award for foreign fiction, 1990; Prix de la Decouverte Europeenne, 1991, for French translation of Sessiz ev; best film and best screenplay awards, Antalya Film Festival, 1991, and best film award, Montreal Festival of New Cinema, all for Gizli yuz; Prix France Culture, 1995, for The Black Book; Premio Grinzane Cavour, 2002, Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, 2002, and IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2003, all for My Name Is Red; inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters as an honorary member, 2005; Prix Medicis, 2005, for Snow; Ricarda Huch Prize, 2005; German Book Industry Peace Prize, 2005; Nobel Prize for literature, Swedish Academy, 2006; Le Prix Mediterranee Etranger, 2006, for Snow; recipient of honorary degree from Georgetown University.

WRITINGS:

Cevdet Bey ve ogullari (novel; title means "Cevdet Bey and His Sons"), Karacan Yayinlari (Istanbul, Turkey), 1982.

Sessiz ev (novel; title means "The House of Silence"), Can Yayinlari (Istanbul, Turkey), 1983.

Beyaz kale (novel), Can Yayinlari (Istanbul, Turkey), 1985, translation by Victoria Holbrook published as The White Castle, Carcanet (Manchester, England), 1990, Braziller (New York, NY), 1991.

Kara Kitap (novel), Can Yayinlari (Istanbul, Turkey), 1990, translation by Guneli Gun published as The Black Book, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1994.

Gizli yuz (screenplay; title means "The Secret Face"), Can Yayinlari (Istanbul, Turkey), 1992.

Yeni hayat (novel), Ileti sim (Istanbul, Turkey), 1994, translation by Guneli Gun published as The New Life, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1997.

Benim adim kirmizi, Ileti sim (Istanbul, Turkey), 1998, translation by Erdag Goknar published as My Name Is Red, Knopf (New York, NY), 2001.

Oteki Renkler: Secme Yazlar ve Bir Hikaye, Ileti sim (Istanbul, Turkey), 1999, translation by Maureen Freely published as Other Colors: Essays and a Story, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 2007.

Kar, Ileti sim (Istanbul, Turkey), 2002, translation by Maureen Freely published as Snow, Knopf (New York, NY), 2004.

Istanbul: Hatiralar ve Sehir (memoir), YKY (Istanbul, Turkey), 2003, translation by Maureen Freely published as Istanbul: Memories and the City, Knopf (New York, NY), 2005.

Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking, Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), 2006.

Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names, photographs by Alex Webb, Aperture Foundation (New York, NY), 2007.

Also author, with Dursun Akcam and Celal Ozcan, of Türkiye'den yeni hikayeler, 12 Antalya Festivali Hikaye Yarismasi, 1976.

Contributor to periodicals, including Times Literary Supplement, World Literature Today, and Newsweek International.

Author's works have been translated into forty-five languages.

ADAPTATIONS:

The Black Book was adapted for film.

SIDELIGHTS:

Orhan Pamuk is a well-known writer in Turkey who published a number of books at a relatively young age. Born in Istanbul in 1952, he grew up in a large family that was once wealthy from his grandfather's role in building railroads across Turkey. By the time Pamuk was born, however, much of the family wealth had been spent. Originally intending to become an artist, Pamuk studied architecture at Istanbul Technical University but abandoned that course of study. He graduated from Istanbul University with a degree in journalism, and though he never worked as a journalist, he decided to become a writer. At the age of twenty-three, he abandoned almost all outside interests, secluded himself in his home, and dedicated his time to writing. When he emerged almost seven years later, it was as an accomplished novelist with a foundation of practice and determination that would lead to his becoming a world-renowned literary figure and the preeminent novelist in Turkey.

Pamuk's first novel, Cevdet Bey ve ogullari, (title means "Cevdet Bey and His Sons") was completed when he was twenty-six years old, and he won acclaim for it shortly after publication. Paul Berman, reviewing Pamuk's books in the New Republic, called him "a celebrated figure, his country's leading postmodern writer." However, it was only with the publication of The White Castle, his fourth book, that Pamuk's writing became accessible to English-language readers.

Cevdet Bey ve ogullari is the story of the lives of Cevdet Bey, a successful and wealthy Istanbul businessman, and his successors, who squander their inheritance. Savkar Altinel, critiquing Pamuk's work in a Times Literary Supplement review, observed that the book is realistic, with a strong plot and characters, and "traces with remorseless clarity the rise of the modern Turkish ruling class and the evolution of Turkish capitalism." Bey has earned a fortune in his lifetime. His successors, however, are weak, ineffectual dreamers who, in Altinel's opinion, are partially responsible for Turkey's failure to achieve international stature. Bey's achievements are matched, finally, by his grandson who gains fame as a painter.

Pamuk's second novel, Sessiz ev, is written in the modernist tradition, according to Altinel. The setting is a small town near Istanbul, where three siblings are spending a week in their grandmother's house. The story takes place in 1980, a time when Turkey was in the midst of armed political conflicts among various street gangs. The book has five narrators, and they each view the action from different perspectives, marking time through existence and an awareness of their own consciousness. Altinel called it a "beautiful, elegiac book" in which Pamuk explores Turkey's Westernization and "the overwhelming, Cartesian awareness of existing as a conscious, thinking being."

John Updike commented in a New Yorker review that Pamuk's next novel, The White Castle, was written in "a postmodern atmosphere of fantasy and cleverness." The story begins as a straightforward narrative by the protagonist, a young Italian scholar who is captured by Turkish pirates. He is given as a slave to an eccentric scientist named Hoja who promises him his freedom in return for knowledge. The two men resemble each other physically, and as the plot evolves the reader is led to the realization that their identities have become interchangeable. In Updike's words, "everything blends and melts into the narrator's misty self." By the end of the story, the reader is unsure of the difference between Hoja and his slave. In the New York Times Book Review, Jay Parini called the book "a fable of identity, a postmodern tale that explores the murky and recessive byways of Cartesian self-consciousness." Christopher Lehmann-Haupt commented in a New York Times review that The White Castle forms a bridge between two cultures. For him, "the appeal [of the book] resides in the odd marriage of Western rationalism and Eastern religious faith."

Pamuk's next novel is a "complex" work, wrote Altinel. When The Black Book was published, Western critics found it to be "so dense it will deter all but the most tenacious readers," as Patrick McGrath commented in the Washington Post Book World, yet "here be marvelous monsters" within the sinuous passageways of this intriguing labyrinth. McGrath was struck by Pamuk's "vision of Istanbul as a city of sinister complexity, a peculiarly Turkish maze with an uneasy, shifting foundation." In the Times Literary Supplement, Robert Irwin acknowledged the theme of The Black Book as an exploration of "Turkey's shaky cultural identity," the ripples from which spill over into the identity of the individual. On such precarious ground, he wrote, "Pamuk's characters find it very difficult to be themselves."

The Black Book is the story of a young lawyer named Galip. In the novel, Galip roams the streets of Istanbul, looking for his wife, Ruya, who has disappeared without giving him any reasons for her absence. Galip searches for clues to his wife's whereabouts in the writings of her half-brother, Jelal, a journalist who has also disappeared, though his newspaper column continues to be published daily. Galip's search never really leads anywhere, and he continues to wander through the streets of Istanbul. According to Altinel, Galip's search for his wife is a symbolic search for reality. Ironically, Ruya's name means "dream," and she always remains elusive. Galip never finds his wife, and he ultimately assumes Jelal's identity and continues his writing. In Contemporary World Writers, Pamuk's translator Guneli Gun likened Galip's quest to "the Sufi quest for ‘the beloved.’ … To find God … is to become God: to find Oneself, one has to become Another, which makes the self, of course, the ultimate mystery."

The Black Book derives from Pamuk's wide-ranging forays into Sufi mysticism, medieval Turkish verse, Western literature, and, according to Gun, "a thousand other sources both from the East, which Pamuk inherits by birthright, and the West, which he has acquired through his own erudition." The author sprinkles gems from this treasury liberally throughout his book. Irwin commented: "As an encyclopedia of esoterica and as a compendium of medieval and modern literary tricks … it is quite wonderful." In Altinel's words: "The book … arrives at the Proustian conclusion that reality, which exists in and as time, cannot be captured but only re-captured: remembered, reimagined, and preserved as literature," and yet, he added, there are doubts about literature's ability to "comprehend all the countless fictions ‘reality’ consists of." Gun described Pamuk as "a writer for whom the pleasure of the text is the ultimate high…. Given a world where man is unable to comprehend reality or solve the mystery, fiction for Orhan Pamuk is not everything, it is the only thing."

Pamuk followed The Black Book with The New Life, in which he pursues similar themes against a more panoramic backdrop, drawing the reader away from the noisy maze of Istanbul into the wider landscape of the Turkish countryside. Jamie James described the novel in the Wall Street Journal as "a telescopic view of a people in whom classical thought, Byzantine glory, and contemporary Islam mingle but do not blend."

In The New Life, Osman is a university student who, during a study break in the dark quiet of his room, discovers a book that changes his life. In pursuit of the beautiful Janan, who has also read the book, he meets her boyfriend, Mehmet, and a mysterious group of people who have dedicated their lives completely to this book and its message of a new life. When Janan disappears and it seems that Mehmet may have been murdered, Osman ventures forth on a meandering quest to find the object of his love and the new life promised by the spellbinding book. On one bus trip after another, he experiences what Washington Post reviewer Bradford Morrow called a "contemporary Turkey which—like … Osman—is poised at the brink of transformation."

Adventures are plentiful. Osman learns that opponents of the "new life" are killing the book's readers wherever they can be found. Highway accidents are frequent. After one such crash, he finds Janan. "Beyond this point … nothing is as it seems, no one is as he seems," wrote D.M. Thomas in the New York Times Book Review. Traveling together, Osman and Janan meet men who might be Mehmet, but are not. Janan disappears again. It becomes difficult to distinguish the identity of Osman from that of Mehmet. Osman seems to have identified the author of the mysterious book, then he seems to become the author himself. "The plot of Mr. Pamuk's novel," James concluded, "is never more engrossing than when it is utterly improbable."

Tom LeClair wrote in the Nation: "When read a second time, The New Life reveals elaborate designs: tail-swallowing, double-doubling, mirror settings, webs of minutiae." This novel, like The Black Book, left some critics bemused: the characters never come fully to life; the story is repetitive, the plot obscure; there is too much abstraction and not enough reality; where is the conclusive ending? "That ultimately becomes the novel's strong point," suggested James. "Ambivalence may be the only rational position to take in a land situated at the vortex of East and West."

More postmodern adventures are presented in My Name Is Red, a story of mystery, fantasy, and philosophy set in the sixteenth century. A group of famous artists are gathered to illuminate a book that celebrates the Sultan. Such artwork is intended to be in the European style of illuminated manuscripts, but also runs against Islamic "prohibitions on representational art," as Allen Hibbard noted in the Review of Contemporary Fiction. Reminiscent of other intellectual mysteries and thrillers, such as Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Pamuk's novel "works on three levels," according to a contributor for Publishers Weekly. First, as a murder mystery, the reader is drawn into the plot, attempting to solve the mystery of who killed one of the artists/artisans, Elegant, at work on the illuminated manuscript. The mystery deepens when Enishte Effendi, the man initially commissioned with the art project, is himself killed. On a second level, Pamuk also writes a novel of ideas, in which East meets West in the Ottoman court, and in which Western Renaissance ideas begin to pervade the Islamic world-view and threaten its basic laws. And third, as the Publishers Weekly reviewer found, the book functions as a "love story," with Enishte's nephew, Black, attempting to win the hand of the widow Shekure, who is also the murdered Enishte's daughter. To do so, Black must solve the murders.

Told from several narrative points of view, including that of a coin, a tree, a horse, the color red, and even a corpse, My Name Is Red is a "nontraditional murder mystery," explained Library Journal contributor Marc Kloszewski—a mystery that also provides "insight into the mores and customs of the time." For the Publishers Weekly critic, the novel contains "jeweled prose and alluring digressions." Other critical praise came from a variety of publications. Booklist reviewer Nancy Pearl felt this "intellectual mystery will appeal to fans" of the genre. Hibbard commented positively on the "clever narrative scheme we only wholly grasp on the last page," and Spectator reviewer Philip Hensher deemed the novel at once "fabulous, baffling, [and] exciting." Hensher went on to note that Pamuk created a "wonderful novel, dreamy, passionate and august, exotic in the most original and exciting way." A critic for Kirkus Reviews added to the praise, calling the book a "rich feast of ideas, images, and lore." Similar commendation came from Richard Eder, writing in the New York Times Book Review. Eder dubbed Pamuk a "great" novelist, and found that My Name Is Red "is not just a novel of ideas. Eastern or Western, good or bad, ideas precipitate once they sink to human level, unleashing passions and violence." According to Eder, the story is "chockful of sublimity and sin."

The "chockful" nature of My Name Is Red, however, was a liability for Sarah Coleman, reviewing the novel in the San Francisco Chronicle Online. Coleman thought that "the ingredients [of the novel] are potent, but the balance is off." Coleman further explained: "Like an overenthusiastic master illustrator, Pamuk paints a vivid picture, but loads it with so many details and symbols that the eye has nowhere calm to rest." But for Conor O'Toole, writing in the Yale Review of Books Online, Pamuk has produced a "novel unlike any written in English," and one that "should impress and reward every thoughtful reader."

Snow, originally published in Turkish as Kar, explores the clash between Islamic fundamentalism and the encroachment of ideals and behaviors from the secular West. The book follows protagonist Kerim Alakusoglu, a forty-two-year-old poet and journalist known as Ka, as he returns to Turkey from political exile in Germany in order to attend his mother's funeral. He accepts an assignment to investigate the recent spate of suicides by young Muslim women in the Turkish border town of Kars. Once there, he is stranded by a ferocious blizzard that cuts the town off from any outside contact. Ka discovers that the women had killed themselves because of local bans on the wearing of Muslim headscarves in school; for them, suicide was a preferred option to being forced to leave their heads uncovered. Complicating Ka's story is his reunion with a childhood sweetheart, Ipek, now estranged from her husband and the object of Ka's romantic interest. Elsewhere, Ipek's sister Kadife falls in with a man known as Blue, who may be either a terrorist or a nationalist. Despite the stress and brutality surrounding him, Ka rediscovers a creative furor long thought lost, and which he attributes to divine inspiration. Poems come to him effortlessly, demanding to be written down. A brutal and unexpected coup is staged during a theater production, sending the story spiraling toward a stunning climax pitting European secularism against political Islam. The novel "abounds with political intrigue while remaining lushly tragic at heart," commented Gilbert Cruz in Entertainment Weekly. For a Kirkus Reviews critic, Snow is "an astonishingly complex, disturbing view of a world we owe it to ourselves to better understand." New Statesman contributor Julian Evans declared the novel to be "profound and frequently brilliant," while New Leader critic Christian Lorentzen found it a "rare and powerful performance."

Other Colors: Essays and a Story contains a collection of seventy-five short works that serve to reflect Pamuk's inner landscape and the literary life he has led. The book includes transcripts of speeches, literary essays, writings on his family, interviews, and reflections on major events, such as the deadly 1999 earthquake in Istanbul, Turkey. All of the pieces in the book "provide insight into the author's private and public worlds and in some way reveal a vital imagination," observed Herbert E. Shapiro, writing in Library Journal. "There is at once wistfulness and grandeur in this beautiful book," commented Booklist reviewer Donna Seaman. A Kirkus Reviews contributor reported that the collection contains "luminous writing that reveals a sweeping intelligence and a capacious heart."

Istanbul: Memories and the City is Pamuk's lush and involved memoir of his early days living in Istanbul. He describes the privileged lifestyle he enjoyed as a youth and offers portraits of his family members, including his beautiful mother, philandering father, and regal grandmother. He considers the efforts of other writers and artists who have attempted to capture the spirit of Istanbul, and their varying levels of success. Pamuk records his many observations and reactions (not all of which are pleasant) to his homeland and the city he has rarely left. All around the city, the specter of past Ottoman glories and current collapse and decay sit as constant reminders of an empire long vanished. "Pamuk is not a sunny memoirist, but neither is he a sunny novelist," commented Christopher De Bellaigue in the New York Times Book Review. "In this memoir of his youth, as in the six novels he has set in the city, Istanbul bears only a fleeting resemblance to the smiling and vibrant place many Westerners know from vacationing there. Pamuk's hometown is rarely consoling; it is more often troubled and malicious," De Bellaigue continued. Quadrant reviewer L.T. Hergenhan further observed that "the memories of a distinguished Turkish novelist with an international reputation, Orhan Pamuk, are varied, even contradictory—a series of dissolving scenes" that evoke, like his novels, the tension between past and present, East and West. In total, the book is a "thoughtful and profoundly unsentimental portrait" of a changed and changing Istanbul, remarked Jennifer Reese in Entertainment Weekly. A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book a "breathtaking portrait of a city, an elegy for a dead civilization and a meditation on life's complicated intimacies." A Kirkus Reviews contributor deemed the book "an eerie, subtle evocation of childhood and a melancholic, loving ode to home."

Though not an overtly political writer, Pamuk's opinions ignited a serious controversy for him in 2005, when remarks he made to a Swiss newspaper led to him being charged with "insulting Turkishness," an act made criminal by Turkey's draconian Article 301. In the interview, Pamuk mentioned the deaths of almost 30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians in early twentieth-century Turkey. This sort of reference to the Armenian genocide is strictly forbidden in Turkey, which refuses to recognize the killings as genocide. The charges against Pamuk caused a tremendous international outcry. Pamuk faced up to four years in prison for his remarks; all along he insisted that his remarks did not insult Turkey, and that he had not referred to the killings as genocide. After his trial, the charges against him were dropped, a response some observers thought was brought about by both international pressure and the ill effects the situation would have had on Turkey's interest in joining the European Union at the time.

In 2006 Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature by the Swedish Academy. His selection drew immediate criticism from many in his homeland, particularly those who had opposed him during his legal entanglements. When Pamuk's award was announced, journalist Ivan Watson, speaking to Steve Inskeep on the National Public Radio (NPR) show Morning Edition, reported that "there are very mixed reactions here [in Turkey]. The Turkish government congratulated Pamuk, but you go out on the street and many people are quite angry, actually." Watson discovered that many people he interviewed believed that the Swedish Academy had made the "purely political decision of rewarding Pamuk for his political statements, not for his literary achievements." As the majority opinion developed, however, it was clear that Pamuk's status as Nobel laureate was enthusiastically supported by many. "Mr. Pamuk's prize is richly deserved," commented a writer in the New York Times. It follows the lifetime production of a collection of work, both "fiction and nonfiction, that is driven by the conscience of imagination as well as the conscience of memory," the writer stated.

Pamuk's work has been lauded by critics for its depth and innovation. However, Berman felt that it would be a mistake to characterize Pamuk as a purely philosophical novelist. According to Berman in an article for the New Republic, although there are connections between the characters and themes of Pamuk's novels, each book has a unique emphasis, and this creates an intrinsic interest in the story. Parini, writing in the New York Times Book Review, was effusive in his praise of Pamuk and compared him to Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. Other critics, like Lehmann-Haupt and Altinel, have also linked Pamuk's writing with modernist writ- ers like Franz Kafka because of the imagery and writing style used in The White Castle. Berman called Pamuk an "extravagantly talented" writer whose books are entertaining, have fascinating themes, and have a "tendency to excite a certain madly enjoyable spirit of theoretical spritz in the reader." Pamuk explained his art to Sarah A. Smith in a Guardian Online interview: "I write modern, some say postmodern, avant-garde-inspired novels, which is a Western form, but they carry [a resonance of] suppressed Ottoman culture, Islamic culture."

In assessing Pamuk's Nobel Prize win, New York Times critic Sarah Lyall remarked that Pamuk's "exquisitely constructed, wistful prose explores the agonized dance between Muslims and the West and between past and present." His books are "less about politics than they are about the longing to move beyond them—to transcend the limitations of history, culture, and religion," observed Randy Boyagoda in another New York Times piece. "For all his writerly playfulness his novels are grounded in the psychology of self-division and in realities of time and place. All his work has historical reverberations," commented Quadrant reviewer Laurie Hergenhan. In an interview on Spiegel Online, Pamuk mused about writing and his work in particular. "I certainly see myself more as a craftsman than as an artist," he said to the interviewer. "Of course, creativity and inspiration do play a role. True literature is more than just a story someone has told. It must provide the reader with the essence of the world on a moral, philosophical and emotional level. I have tried to develop this inner truth in all my works. But without patience and the skill of a craftsman, even the greatest talent is wasted."

Throughout the entirety of his work, Pamuk seeks the place where East and West can come together, melding thought, politics, literature, and art into a cohesive whole that benefits and enriches both. "My whole book, my whole life, is a testimony to the fact that East and West actually combine, come together gracefully and produce something new. That is what I have been trying to do all my life, trying to prove," Pamuk commented while remarking on his novel The Black Book in an All Things Considered radio interview with Robert Siegel. Pamuk is "the Turkish novelist of his generation best equipped to navigate the mainstream of contemporary European literature," remarked Andrew Finkel in Time International. "In literature, Pamuk is the leading example of the way Turkey has both assimilated influences from around the world and, in turn, made valuable contributions of its own," observed Stephen Kinzer in World Literature Today. "He epitomizes the emerging identity of a nation that is still eager to embrace the modernity that was Ataturk's great legacy but [is] now ready, as well, to seek inspiration from its rich Ottoman past. For decades that was thought of as an impossible contradiction, but no more."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary World Writers, 2nd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1993.

Pamuk, Orhan, Istanbul: Memories and the City (memoir), translated by Maureen Freely, Knopf (New York, NY), 2005.

PERIODICALS

American-Arab Affairs, summer, 1991, review of The White Castle, p. 103.

Atlantic Monthly, February, 1995, Phoebe-Lou Adams, review of The Black Book, p. 113; October, 2004, Christopher Hitchens, "Mind the Gap: Turkey Is Everyone's Idea of a ‘Successful’ Modern Muslim State—A New Novel Will Make You Think Twice," review of Snow, p. 188.

Biography, fall, 2005, Byron Ayanoglu, review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 724.

Booklist, March 15, 1991, review of The White Castle, p. 1455; October 1, 2001, Nancy Pearl, review of My Name Is Red, p. 300; June 1, 2004, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Snow, p. 1704; May 15, 2005, Keir Graff, review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 1633; September 15, 2007, Donna Seaman, review of Other Colors: Essays and a Story, p. 16.

Books, autumn, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 21.

Bookseller, December 23, 2005, Alison Bone, "Publishers Back Pamuk," p. 14.

Buffalo News, November 4, 2007, Charity Vogel, "Literary Buffalo: Some of the Biggest Names in Writing—Including Two Nobel Prize Winners—Are Set to Visit Western New York as Part of a First-Class Author Series."

Choice, October, 1991, review of The White Castle, p. 290.

Christian Century, March 22, 2005, Charles Strohmer, review of Snow, p. 39.

Christian Science Monitor, April 12, 1991, Mary Warner Marien, review of The White Castle, p. 13; October 11, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 19.

Contemporary Review, August, 2005, review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 126.

Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, spring, 2005, Aylin Bayrakceken and Don Randall, "Meetings of East and West: Orhan Pamuk's Istanbulite Perspective," p. 191.

Economist, October 27, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 80; December 22, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 107; October 21, 2006, "A Prize Affair: Turkey and the Armenians," p. 60.

Entertainment Weekly, September 17, 2004, Gilbert Cruz, review of Snow, p. 84; June 10, 2005, Jennifer Reese, review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 113.

European Report, January 25, 2006, "Turkey's Move to Drop Pamuk Trial Welcomed, but Concerns about Freedoms Persist," p. 405.

Financial Times, January 24, 2006, Vincent Boland and Daniel Dombey, "Turkey Moves on Cyprus after Dropping Case against Novelist," p. 6; October 13, 2006, Quentin Peel, "Award for Turkish Writer Strikes a Blow for Freedom of Speech," p. 7; October 13, 2006, Vincent Boland, "Nobel Prize for Pamuk Gets Mixed Reviews in Turkey," p. 7.

Guardian Weekly, November 10, 1991, review of The White Castle, p. 28.

Houston Chronicle (Houston, TX), October 13, 2006, Tracy Wilkinson and Laura King, "Provocative Turkish Novelist Wins Nobel; Pamuk Is Seen as a Reluctant Hero of Free Expression," profile of Orhan Pamuk, p. 1.

Hudson Review, autumn, 1995, review of The Black Book, p. 485.

Internet Bookwatch, September, 2007, review of Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 1994, review of The Black Book, p. 1438; August 1, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 1058; June 1, 2004, review of Snow, p. 512; April 1, 2005, review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 405; August 1, 2007, review of Other Colors.

Library Journal, February 15, 1991, Paula I. Nielson, review of The White Castle, p. 222; December, 1994, Robert E. Brown, review of The Black Book, p. 133; September 1, 2001, Marc Kloszewski, review of My Name Is Red, p. 234; July, 2004, Marc Kloszewski, review of Snow, p. 73; May 15, 2005, Mari Flynn, review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 137; September 15, 2007, Herbert E. Shapiro, review of Other Colors, p. 62.

London Review of Books, October 5, 1995, review of The Black Book, p. 22.

Los Angeles Times, December 25, 1994, review of The Black Book, p. 3; October 7, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 9.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, December 2, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 11.

M2 Best Books, May 21, 2003, "Turkish Author Awarded IMPAC Prize"; September 14, 2005, "EU Criticises Turkey's Charges against Author"; October 18, 2005, "Turkish Author Refutes His Earlier Claims of Genocide"; October 24, 2005, "Orhan Pamuk Reiterates Massacre Remarks"; February 5, 2007, "Orhan Pamuk Departs for the U.S. after Cancelling Book Reading Tour of Germany"; February 14, 2007, "Orhan Pamuk in Exile in the U.S.—Claim"; May 30, 2007, "Orhan Pamuk Tells Audience at Hay Festival That He Is Not in Exile—Report."

Nation, March 27, 1995, review of The Black Book, p. 425; April 7, 1997, Tom LeClair, review of The New Life, pp. 38-39.

New Leader, September, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 23; July 1, 2004, Christian Lorentzen, "The Poet and the Terrorists," review of Snow, p. 28.

New Republic, September 9, 1991, Paul Berman, review of The White Castle, p. 36.

New Statesman, August 27, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 41; May 10, 2004, Julian Evans, "Veiled Hatred," review of Snow, p. 53.

New Statesman & Society, July 7, 1995, Guy Mannes-Abbott, review of The Black Book, p. 41; May 17, 1996, review of The Black Book, p. 40.

Newsweek International, October 23, 2006, Malcolm Jones, "The Last Word: Orhan Pamuk; ‘I Wanted to Be a Painter,’" interview with Orhan Pamuk.

New Yorker, September 2, 1991, John Updike, review of The White Castle, pp. 102, 104-105.

New York Times, April 29, 1991, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of The White Castle, p. C15; December 17, 2005, Sebnem Arsu, "Turks Defer Trial of Novelist Who Cited Armenian Deaths," p. 3; December 21, 2005, "Turkey on Trial, Part 1," p. 38; January 24, 2006, Sebnem Arsu, "Turkish Court Drops Charges against Novelist," p. 6; January 31, 2006, "The Way Forward for Turkey," p. 20; October 13, 2006, Charles McGrath, "A Grab Bag of Postmodern Literary Devices Helps Shape Orhan Pamuk's Career," profile of Orhan Pamuk, p. 10; October 13, 2006, Sarah Lyall, "Turkish Novelist Who Dissects Islam-West Clash Wins Nobel," p. 1; October 14, 2006, Randy Boyagoda, "A Writer above Politics," profile of Orhan Pamuk, p. 13; October 14, 2006, Sebnem Arsu, "Turkish Laureate Criticizes French Legislation," p. 5; October 16, 2006, "Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Prize," p. 18; October 5, 2007, William Grimes, "Self-Portrait, Assembled, by a Son of Istanbul," review of Other Colors, p. 38.

New York Times Book Review, May 19, 1991, Jay Parini, review of The White Castle, p. 3; June 9, 1991, review of The White Castle, p. 34; January 15, 1995, Robert Houston, review of The Black Book, p. 20; June 23, 1996, review of The Black Book, p. 32; April 6, 1997, D.M. Thomas, review of The New Life, pp. 7-8; September 2, 2001, Richard Eder, review of My Name Is Red, p. 7; December 2, 2001, review My Name Is Red, p. 66; September 8, 2002, review of My Name Is Red, p. 28; August 15, 2004, Alexander Star, "Orhan Pamuk: ‘I Was Not a Political Person,’" interview with Orhan Pamuk, p. 8; June 12, 2005, Christopher De Ballaigue, "A Walker in the City," review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 10; September 30, 2007, Pico Iyer, "A View of the Bosporus," review of Other Colors, p. 16.

Observer (London, England), June 25, 1995, review of The Black Book, p. 16; May 19, 1996, review of The Black Book, p. 16; August 5, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 16.

People, September 13, 2004, Heidi Jon Schmidt, review of Snow, p. 55.

Publishers Weekly, February 22, 1991, Sybil Steinberg, review of The White Castle, p. 212; November 14, 1994, review of The Black Book, p. 52; May 13, 1996, review of The Black Book, p. 72; August 6, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 58; November 19, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 35; December 19, 1994, Judy Stone, "Orhan Pamuk: ‘Enigma Is Sovereign,’" p. 36; July 19, 2004, review of Snow, p. 144; August 23, 2004, Wendy Smith, "Orhan Pamuk: Outspoken Turk," p. 34; April 18, 2005, review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 54; October 3, 2005, Michael Scharf, "Bastard Out of Istanbul: Free Speech Runs Afoul of Turkish Authorities," p. 35.

Quadrant, March, 1999, review of The New Life, p. 86; November, 2005, L.T. Hergenhan, "A Life in a City," review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 90; January 1, 2007, Laurie Hergenhan, "Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize Winner," p. 86.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, fall, 2001, Allen Hibbard, review of My Name Is Red, pp. 203-204.

Spectator, August 19, 1995, Philip Glazebrook, review of The Black Book, p. 32; August 4, 2001, Philip Hensher, review of My Name Is Red, p. 29; May 8, 2004, John de Falbe, "Rather Cold Turkey," review of Snow, p. 46; May 14, 2005, Philip Mansel, "Lament for Lost Beauties," review of Istanbul: Memories and the City, p. 68.

Time, May 8, 2006, Howard Chua-Eoan, "Orhan Pamuk," p. 111.

Time International, September 13, 1999, Andrew Finkel, "Orhan Pamuk: Novelist, 47," p. 38.

Times Literary Supplement, October 12, 1990, Savkar Altinel, review of Kara Kitap, p. 1087; July 7, 1995, Robert Irwin, review of The Black Book, p. 21; November 29, 1996, review of The Black Book, p. 16; September 7, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 6.

Tribune Books (Chicago), September 23, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 1.

UPI NewsTrack, February 14, 2007, "Turkish Writer Said to Fear for His Life."

Village Voice Literary Supplement, December, 1991, review of The Black Book, p. 16; February, 1995, review of The Black Book, p. 19.

Wall Street Journal, April 4, 1997, Jamie James, review of The New Life, p. A7.

Washington Post, October 30, 2007, Bob Thompson, "Turning Novel Ideas into Inhabitable Worlds," profile of Orhan Pamuk, p. C01.

Washington Post Book World, February 12, 1995, Patrick McGrath, review of The Black Book, p. 6; July 13, 1997, Bradford Morrow, review of The New Life, p. 11; September 2, 2001, review of My Name Is Red, p. 13.

Weekly Standard (Washington, DC), November 20, 2006, Stephen Schwartz, "Istanbul (Not Constantinople); Don't Hold Your Breath for Turkey to Enter the European Union."

World, January, 2002, review of My Name Is Red, p. 227.

World and I, June, 1991, review of The White Castle, p. 349; June, 1991, review of Kara Kitap, p. 447.

World Literature Today, autumn, 1991, Keith Hitchins, review of The White Castle, p. 764; winter, 1992, review of The Black Book, p. 59; January-April, 2005, Murat Belge, "Orhan Pamuk," profile of Orhan Pamuk, p. 62; November-December, 2006, Stephen Kinzer, "Grand Inquisitors," profile of Orhan Pamuk, p. 25; November-December, 2006, "Implied Writer," p. 20; November-December, 2006, Walter G. Andrews, "Orhan Pamuk: Memories Personal and Professional," p. 27; November-December, 2006, "The Life and Work of Orhan Pamuk with Highlights from the 2006 Puterbaugh Conference on World Literature," p. 16; May 1, 2007, "Unscripted: Segments from the News-Hour with Jim Lehrer," p. 8.

ONLINE

BBC News Online,http://news.bbc.co.uk/ (August 7, 2003), Orhan Pamuk, "Sense of the City: Istanbul."

BookPage Online,http://www.bookpage.com/ (September, 2001), Michael Alec Rose, review of My Name Is Red.

British Broadcasting Company (BBC) Web site,http://www.bbc.co.uk/ (October 12, 2006), biography of Orhan Pamuk.

Flak Magazine,http://www.flakmag.com/ (November 27, 2001), Clay Risen, review of My Name Is Red.

Guardian Online,http://www.guardian.co.uk/ (December 7, 2002), Sarah A. Smith, "A Private History."

Orhan Pamuk Home Page,http://www.orhanpamuk.net (December 17, 2007).

San Francisco Chronicle Online,http://www.sfgate.com/ (December 9, 2001), Sarah Coleman, review of My Name Is Red.

Spiegel Online,http://www.spiegel.de/ (May 2, 2007), "On One Drives Me into Exile," profile of Orhan Pamuk.

Yale Review of Books Online,http://www.yalereviewofbooks.com/ (spring, 2002), Conor O'Toole, review of My Name Is Red.

OTHER

All Things Considered, October 12, 2006, Robert Siegel, "Once Resented, Pamuk Takes Solace in Nobel," transcript of National Public Radio (NPR) interview with Orhan Pamuk.

Day to Day, October 11, 2005, Frank Browning, "Profile: Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's Controversial Faulkner," transcript of NPR interview with Orhan Pamuk.

Morning Edition, October 26, 2004, Steve Inskeep, "Interview: Orhan Pamuk Discusses How Religious Fundamentalism Affects Society," transcript of NPR interview with Orhan Pamuk; October 13, 2006, "Not All Turks Admire New Nobel Literature Winner."