Orhan Pamuk started writing regularly in 1974. His first novel,
Karanl?k ve I??k (
Darkness and Light) was a co-winner of the 1979 Milliyet Press Novel Contest (Mehmet Ero?lu (* tr) was the other winner). This novel was published with the title
Cevdet Bey ve O?ullar? (
Mr. Cevdet and His Sons) in 1982, and won the Orhan Kemal Novel Prize in 1983. It tells the story of three generations of a wealthy Istanbul family living in Ni?anta??, the district of Istanbul where Pamuk grew up.
Pamuk won a number of critical prizes for his early work, including the 1984 Madarali Novel Prize for his second novel
Sessiz Ev (
The Silent House) and the 1991 Prix de la Découverte Européenne for the French translation of this novel. His historical novel
Beyaz Kale (
The White Castle), published in Turkish in 1985, won the 1990 Independent Award for Foreign Fiction and extended his reputation abroad.
The New York Times Book Review stated,
"A new star has risen in the east...Orhan Pamuk." He started experimenting with postmodern techniques in his novels, a change from the strict naturalism of his early works.
Popular success took a bit longer to come to Pamuk, but his 1990 novel
Kara Kitap (
The Black Book) became one of the most controversial and popular readings in Turkish literature, due to its complexity and richness. In 1992, he wrote the screenplay for the movie
Gizli Yüz (
Secret Face), based on
Kara Kitap and directed by a prominent Turkish director, Ömer Kavur. Pamuk's fourth novel
Yeni Hayat (
New Life) caused a sensation in Turkey upon its 1995 publication and became the fastest-selling book in Turkish history. By this time, Pamuk had also become a high-profile figure in Turkey, due to his support for Kurdish political rights. In 1995, Pamuk was among a group of authors tried for writing essays that criticized Turkey's treatment of the Kurds. In 1999, Pamuk published his book of essays
Öteki Renkler (
Other Colors).
Pamuk's international reputation continued to increase when he published
Benim Ad?m K?rm?z? (
My Name is Red) in 2000. The novel blends mystery, romance, and philosophical puzzles in a setting of 16th century Istanbul. It opens a window into the reign of Ottoman Sultan Murat III in nine snowy winter days of 1591, inviting the reader to experience the tension between East and West from a breathlessly urgent perspective.
My Name Is Red has been translated into 24 languages and won international literature's most lucrative prize, the IMPAC Dublin Award in 2003.
Asked the question "What impact did winning the IMPAC award (currently $127,000) have on your life and your work?", Pamuk replied:
Nothing changed in my life since I work all the time. I've spent 30 years writing fiction. For the first 10 years, I worried about money and no one asked how much money I made. The second decade I spent money and no one was asking about that. And I've spent the last 10 years with everyone expecting to hear how I spend the money, which I will not do.
Pamuk's next novel was
Kar in 2002 (English translation,
Snow, 2004), which takes place in the border city of Kars and explores the conflict between Islamism and Westernism in modern Turkey. Snow follows Ka, an expatriate Turkish poet, as he wanders around the snowy Kars and gets caught up in the muddle of aimless Islamist, MPs, headscarf advocates, secularists, and a number of factions who die and kill in the name of highly contradictory ideals.
The New York Times listed
Snow as one of its Ten Best Books of 2004. He also published a memoir/travelogue
?stanbul...Hat?ralar ve ?ehir in 2003 (English version,
Istanbul...Memories and the City, 2005). Pamuk's
Other Colours - a collection of non-fiction and a story ... was published in the UK in September 2007. His next novel is titled
The Museum of Innocence.
In both "Snow" and the "Museum of Innocence", Pamuk describes tragic love stories, where men fall in love with beautiful women at first sight. It has been noted that Pamuk´s portrayals of women and the reasons men fall in love with them are powerful in their intensity, yet superficial in the way this love stories originate. Pamuk´s heroes tend to be educated men who fall tragically in love with beauties, but who are doomed to a decrepit loneliness.
Asked how personal his book
Istanbul: Memories and the City was, Pamuk replied:
I thought I would write Memories and the City in six months, but it took me one year to complete. And I was working twelve hours a day, just reading and working. My life, because of so many things, was in a crisis; I don’t want to go into those details: divorce, father dying, professional problems, problems with this, problems with that, everything was bad. I thought if I were to be weak I would have a depression. But every day I would wake up and have a cold shower and sit down and remember and write, always paying attention to the beauty of the book. Honestly, I may have hurt my mother, my family. My father was dead, but my mother is still alive. But I can’t care about that; I must care about the beauty of the book.
In 2005 Orhan Pamuk received the ?25,000 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his literary work, in which "Europe and Islamic Turkey find a place for one another." The award presentation was held at Paul's Church, Frankfurt.
Pamuk's books are characterized by a confusion or loss of identity brought on in part by the conflict between Western and Eastern values. They are often disturbing or unsettling, but include complex, intriguing plot and characters of great depth. His works are also redolent with discussion of and fascination with the creative arts, such as literature and painting. Pamuk's work often touches on the deep-rooted tensions between East and West and tradition and modernism/secularism.