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"He enlarged the roots of the contemporary novel"

Selection not influenced by his political squabbles in Turkey: Academy

STOCKHOLM: The Swedish Academy has again honoured a writer who has criticised his or her home country, both in print and in public.

Last year's winner, Briton Harold Pinter, called for Prime Minister Tony Blair to be impeached. The 2004 winner, Austrian Elfriede Jelinek, criticised the treatment of women in her country.

But Horace Engdahl, the head of the Swedish Academy, which has decided the winner of every literature prize since 1901, said the selection was not influenced by his political squabbles in Turkey. "It could of course lead to some political turbulence but we are not interested in that," he said. "He is a controversial person in his own country, but on the other hand so are almost all of our prize winners."

He said Mr. Pamuk, a non-practising Muslim, was selected because he had "enlarged the roots of the contemporary novel" through his links to both Western and Eastern culture. "This means that he has stolen the novel, one can say, from us Westerners and has transformed it to something different from what we have ever seen before," Mr. Engdahl said. "His roots in two cultures... allows him to take our own image and reflect it in a partially unknown and partially recognisable image, and it is incredibly fascinating." Mr. Pamuk's prize marked the first time that a writer from a predominantly Muslim country has been honoured for literature since 1988, when the award went to Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, who died in August.

In its citation, the Academy said: "Pamuk has said that growing up, he experienced a shift from a traditional Ottoman family environment to a more Western-oriented lifestyle. He wrote about this in his first published novel, a family chronicle... which in the spirit of Thomas Mann follows the development of a family over generations.

"Pamuk's international breakthrough came with his third novel, The White Castle. It is structured as an historical novel set in 17th-century Istanbul, but its content is primarily a story about how our ego builds on stories and fictions of different sorts. Personality is shown to be a variable construction.

"This is an author that creates an immediate and almost childish joy of reading," Mr. Engdahl said.

In winning the prize, Mr. Pamuk's already solid reputation will be boosted onto a global stage. He will also see out-of-print works returned into circulation and a sales boost. He will also receive a 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) cheque, a gold medal and diploma, and an invitation to a lavish banquet in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel. — AP

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