Nobel Prize for fearless defender of freedom of speech in Turkey

Turkey’s leading writer and searing social commentator, whose refusal to shy from controversial aspects of his country’s past enraged conservatives at home, has confounded his critics by winning the world’s most prestigious literary prize. Orhan Pamuk, who had faced jail for referring to the suffering of Turkey’s Armenian population, has been awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature, a choice widely seen as motivated by achievements in the political sphere as well as by his literary output. Pamuk, whose novels My Name is Red and Snow gained plaudits worldwide for their skillful intertwining of Eastern and Western cultures, has long been praised for his courageous tackling of modern Turkey’s demons. He has gained a reputation as a leading defender of freedom of speech in a country with aspirations to join the EU but a track-record of silencing those who confront certain long-held national taboos. (The Independent,October 13, 2006)

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