Orhan Pamuk in Harper’s

In the September issue of Harper’s magazine there’s an excellent article on the recent Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk, written by Christopher de Bellaigue (also check out the photo essay of Turkey on the pages preceding it). Alas, it’s not available online or I would link. The article, “There is no East” is less about analyzing or dissecting Pamuk’s fiction than about setting him in a historical context and ruminating about his antagonistic relationship to Turkey. I did find it odd that most of the way through the article the author suddenly sits down and interviews Pamuk, yet only gives him about four quotes before returning to a more scholarly, distanced criticism, but overall the piece does well in offering the type of overview of Pamuk’s life and Turkey’s history that gives color to his fiction. In particular, although briefly mentioned, there are many similarities between Pamuk and Salman Rushdie – both exiled to New York, both excoriated by their countrymen (sure, Rushdie will be knighted, but he’s made some fierce enemies for his criticism of Britain), and both under fire internationally for the offensive nature of their work (although it still seems surreal that Pamuk could be prosecuted for “insulting Turkishness”).