Turkish Nobel laureate: I am completely dedicated to writing

Turkish writer and Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk said that he is completely dedicated to writing and that it is a lifestyle for him, stressing that he hopes that his country will soon return to the development of a liberal society and good relations with Western countries.

Pamuk, who will officially open the 2017th winter book fair "Booka XNUMX" tonight at the Mall of Montenegro, said at the press conference that he was overjoyed to have come to Montenegro, where, as he added, the popularity of his books is great .

"When you look at the relationship between the number of books read and the number of inhabitants, it turns out that I am the world's most popular author in Montenegro, and this is proven by the fact that I have published six novels so far, and the seventh book will be published soon. I really thank my publisher for this great success", said Pamuk.

He said that he has been writing prose for 40 years and that it is a lifestyle for him.

"It is not a situation in which I write, and then I also have some other business life. My writing is my life and I am fully committed to it. "Life and writing are one thing for me," said Pamuk.

The reason he is in Montenegro, as he said, is the publication of the novel "Red Hair", which is based on two ideas.

"My new book is a kind of literary comparison of two big, key, fundamental stories. One is Sophocles' Oedipus the King, and the other is Firdusi's Rustem and Suhrab. We are talking about two great myths, one that represents European civilization and Western civilization and the other that represents something that I can call my own, Islamic civilization," explained Pamuk.

He added that the novel "The Redhead" is also based on what he heard from a well digger in 1988, who, as he explained, was digging a well with a student on the plot next to his.

"The novel is a realistic story about searching for and finding water in a desolate land, but also a story about the relationship of a father figure towards a student, whom he tries to discipline. That old master, the well digger, told me the story that is in this book. That story stayed with me for the next 25 years and then I made the decision that I could write a novel, which I did three years ago," explained Pamuk.

He considers himself "a very lucky novelist", because he has seen his books published and translated into 62 languages ​​and because, as he said, he travels the world and visits bookshops "like yours and hangs out with people like you you.

"The only thing that makes me unhappy is the political situation in my country, but I'm sure that one day that will be resolved," said Pamuk.

Asked to comment on how artistic creation is affected by the fact that Turkey is an authoritarian state, he recalled that in July of last year there was an attempted military coup in which 250 people were "brutally" killed, after which, as he explained, the Government raised indictments against the perpetrators of that act.

"However, this purge and indictment also included people who were not connected to the attempted military coup and who only tried to criticize the Government's handling of the military coup. Therefore, 150 thousand people lost their jobs, 55 thousand people were sent to prison, and more than 190 writers and journalists were imprisoned", said Pamuk.

He said that he hopes that Turkey will soon return to liberal European democracy, although, as he said, the prospects in this regard are not favorable.

He said that the novel, as a literary form, completely conquered the world and became a global occurrence and phenomenon, which suppressed and stifled other literary forms.

"Today, everyone writes novels. It is a global form that everyone has accepted and everyone wants to write novels. It is a European form, which now belongs to everyone," explained Pamuk.

He said that identity is important and that word, as he clarified, usually implies one's own culture, history, language, literature, "all that burden of the past that comes with the use of that word."

"This includes faith and religion, and it is a huge burden of the past that presses on us. On the one hand, we retain what we inherited from the past, which is part of our identity. But we also want to invent new things, to try them. I respect the past, but I am also a free being and I want to look at new ways, ways and to look at that past through them," explained Pamuk.

The director of the publishing house Nova knjiga, Predrag Uljarević, said that he was very glad that one of the world's greatest writers of today came to Montenegro.

"According to the general opinion, Pamuk wrote some of his best books after receiving the Nobel Prize. So we think that this is also a unique example, when it comes to the winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature", Uljarević assessed.

Pamuk will be presented with the international literary award Književni plamen, which was founded in 2015 by the Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa and the Nova Knjiga publishing house.

The tenth Winter Book Fair will last until December 31, and books by numerous publishers from Montenegro and the region will be sold at favorable prices, with discounts of up to 50 percent.