Orhan Pamuk Honoured in His Hometown

"To be honored in your own home is a source of enormous pride. I am so very happy," Pamuk told an audience, who rose to give him a strong applaud.

The event marks the beginning of a symposium dedicated to Pamuk's literary work. His remarks about the Armenian genocide claims last year rendered Pamuk a target for nationalist circles and he had left Turkey sober after receiving anonymous threats. He had been also tried with "insulting Turksihness" by an Istanbul court.

Andrew Finkel reports that in accepting the award Pamuk emphasized the importance of intellectual freedom, or what he called the "space to be curious," and the freedom to sometimes be irresponsible. He praised the Bosphorus University's defense of academic liberties in the intellectual life of the nation. "No honorary doctorate from any other institution, anywhere else in the world, could mean this much," he said.

"I didn't sleep at all last night in anticipation," he confessed. Just over 40 years previously he had sat in the same hall as a high school student taking an English placement exam for Robert Academy (today's Robert College), which then shared the university campus.

"There has always been a special relationship between Orhan Pamuk and this university," explained Jale Parla, professor of literature and former Bosphorus faculty member. Pamuk's first Dostoyevsky-style dynastic saga, "Cevdet Bey and his Sons," won immediate critical acclaim, but his subsequent post-modern experiments "The White Castle" and "The Black Book" were greeted not so much with hostility, but uncomprehending silence.

It was Nüket Esen, now head of the university's Turkish literature department, along with figures like Professor Parla who signposted to the world that Pamuk was leading the Turkish novel and language in new directions.

University authorities, yesterday, were eager to emphasize the non-political nature of their award, although several faculty members privately expressed their pleasure in rewarding a creative talent who spoke his mind. Pamuk did not disappoint them in his brief acceptance speech. "A society which is not free has no future," he said.(EÜ)