Quotes by Orhan Pamuk

“I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.”
― Orhan Pamuk, The New Life

The best books of all time by Orhan Pamuk

The Greatest Books: Written by Orhan Pamuk The greatest books of all time written by the author Orhan Pamuk

“Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold
the whole world.”
Orhan Pamuk, Snow

The novel Snow tells a long and involved story of exploration and return from exile, of longing and happiness and the realization of their impossibility, of the role of God in the modern world. Not a small menu but for Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist, this 2002 work accomplishes most of what it sets out to do. It does so also with satire and wit, foolish and wise conversation, and great insight for both Turks and Westerners into the Turkish bifurcated political reality.

The story takes place over four or five days during a snowstorm in the city of Kars. Now a backwater, the city was once a gleaming and cosmopolitan center. The poet who insists on being known only as Ka, returns to Kars after twelve years of political exile in Germany. He comes to woo the beautiful Ipek and to investigate the suicides of a number of young girls who refused to remove their head scarves as determined by the central and secular government in Ankara. Ka seems successful in his pursuit, but his lingering melancholy and his doubts about his own atheism lead him into very strange territory in this very isolated city. There is a ridiculous but deadly coup at the National Theater staged by the primo actor and secular loyalist. Everyone knows that the coup will be smashed when the storm stops but everyone still behaves as if this political theater were real. Alliances are built, questioned, destroyed. Secular characters spar with fierce religionists. Ka is able to write poems for the first time in years. His love for Ipek is returned. Or is it? Who gets killed, and why?

If this sounds too heady, it isn’t. Pamuk handles his story with a light hand (Ok: occasionally not so light) and has fun with both sides of a feud that is uniquely Turkish and yet universal. It helps us as Westerners to understand the special place that Turkey occupies in the European/Eastern divide. And with all this the very human story of longing and suffering and joy grabs us and holds us fast. Pamuk then adds special depth by slowly revealing that a Turkish novelist named Orham Pamuk is writing this story after the events and lets us into the back rooms of the story as initially revealed. And it works!
Several years later Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Turkish writer to do so. That this would be part of his work considered at the time for this great distinction proves to be no surprise at all.

Faber has announced Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk, a new novel from the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, translated from Turkish by Ekin Oklap

Faber to publish Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk | News | Faber Faber has announced Nights of Plague by Orhan Pamuk, an historical epic of murder and mystery, myth-making and nation-building.

Orhan Pamuk is a distinguished Turkish novelist and screenwriter. After completing his graduation, he published his first novel ‘Darkness and Light’ which brought him the ‘Milyet Press Novel Contest Award’. This encouraged him to further write his historical novel titled ‘The White Castle’ which also turned out to be a great success and helped his readership cross the national boundaries. This was followed by 'The Black Book’ which became the most controversial book of his career, but its popularity motivated him to write a screenplay based on it. He wrote several successful novels before one of his most notable books ‘My Name is Red’. This book turned out to be a great success and was translated into various languages, and received several awards. During this period he wrote a few travelogues as well memoirs published as ‘Istanbul-Memories and the City’. He has been honored by various awards and accolades including the most respected ‘Noble Prize for Literature’. He has shared his views and thoughts on several subjects through his writings, travelogues and also through the characters of his novels and books. We have scanned his writings for his most famous quotations. We are taking you through some of Orhan Pamuks’ great quotes and thoughts on writing, comparative literature, freedom of speech and philosophy.

"Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world." - Orhan Pamuk