Turkish writer wins the Nobel Prize in Literature 2006

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2006 has been awarded to the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk "who in the quest for melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures".

Professor Horace Engdahl, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy made the announcement in the Academy in the old town of Stockholm.

Professor Engdahl said Pamuk has renewed the style of novel in a remarkable way, and the main prerequisite for his creativity has been an interesting way of describing his city of Istanbul. "He is a unique writer."

In 1952, Orhan Pamuk was born into a middle class family in Istanbul. He studied architecture and journalism in Istanbul University and between 1985 and 1988, he has been a visiting researcher at Columbia University in New York.

According to the citation of the Swedish Academy, "Pamuk's international breakthrough came with his third novel Beyaz Kale(1985, the White Castle, 1992). It is structured as a 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".

Pamuk's writing has also become known for his identities and doubts reflected in his book "the Black Book" and his discussion of the role of individuality in art.

"In the Black Book, he develops an art of story-telling which makes people read it in a stretch and attracted by its mystic tradition of the East or the old style of the west." Professor Engdahl said.

While he described a lot about Istanbul's portrait in his collection of essays "Istanbul: Memories and the city" , he also wrote about the political and religious conflicts that characterize Turkish society today.

In his home country, Pamuk has been known as a social commentator even though he sees himself as principally a fiction writer with no political agenda. But his western experience and ideas are obviously interwoven in his works.

By Chen Xuefei, People's Daily Online Correspondent in Stockholm.