Literature Nobel Prize Winner Combines Fiction, Politics, Says Duke Professor and Pamuk Translator

Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is a worthy selection because of his literary ability to represent different cultures and his increasing political prominence, says a Duke University assistant professor who translated one of Pamuk's novels into English.

"He's trying to convey the world views that have confronted each other in Turkey," said Erdağ Göknar, who shared with Pamuk the 2003 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for the English rendering of "My Name is Red."

"His fiction allows us to get into the mind, the culture of the other, the foreigner," said Göknar, who teaches Turkish language and literature.

Beginning in the 1990s, Pamuk became increasingly political in his fiction and public remarks, said Göknar, who is writing a book about Pamuk's place in international and Turkish literature.

"Most everything he writes is allegorical," he said. "A book may be set in the Ottoman Empire, but it's a social commentary on present-day Turkey.

"That's why his court case for ‘insulting Turkishness' became an international lightning rod. It was really about a struggle over Turkey's political identity as a E.U. and Muslim country."