ISTANBUL: Turkey s first Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk launched his latest novel this weekend in Turkey, “The Museum of Innocence, a love story between a rich man and a poor girl set in Istanbul.
The recipient of the Nobel prize for literature in 2006, whose works are translated in 40 countries, told the Sunday paper Sabah in an interview, “‘The Museum of Innocence’ is my most tender novel, and the one that shows the most patience and respect for people.
It recounts the passion of a couple over 30 years from the 1970s, raising such sensitive subjects in predominantly Muslim Turkey as sexuality and virginity.
Around 100,000 copies of the book have sold in two days, according to the newspaper, citing the publishers.
Pamuk, 55, author of “Snow and “The Black Book and other novels mulling the clash of Muslim and Western culture in Turkey, is a controversial figure in his home country.
He was prosecuted for telling a Swiss magazine that 30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians had been killed during World War I under the Ottoman Turks, although the case was dropped on a technicality.
He has been under police protection since the murder of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul in January last year. Dink is believed to have been killed by ultra-nationalists in revenge for remarks he made about the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman empire. – AFP
