CSM: To solve Turkey's culture clash, old elite must yield to free speech - by Orhan Pamuk
Pamuk: "I identify with Kemal's attention as a lover to his beloved because it is like a novelist's attention to words. In the end, being a novelist, in a way, is loving the world, caressing the world with words. It is paying attention to all the details that you have lived and experienced. This book is my most personal, intimate book. It is all the things I have lived and seen in Istanbul in my entire life. It is a panorama written with loving detail."
"I was so happy writing this book. It gave me so much happiness that I would say it saved me during very troubled political times. After writing every morning from 7 to 11, I was able to face the tensions of the rest of day during those long months. [Pamuk was tried in 2005-2006 for "insulting Turkishness" by addressing the issue of Armenian massacres in an interview with a Swiss paper. The charges were later dropped."
Labels: Turkey
