One of the most well-known and controversial authors writing in Turkey today, Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952. He aspired to be a painter in his youth, characterizing himself as the artistic member of a family of engineers. His education shows a penchant for writing despite earlier aspirations; after attending an American preparatory school in Istanbul, Pamuk earned a diploma in journalism at Istanbul University. He turned seriously to the craft of writing in 1974. In 1982, after eight years of searching for a publisher, Pamuk released his first novel, Cevdet Bey ve ogullari (Cevdet Bey and His Sons), which won two prizes and launched him on a rapid rise to fame. His subsequent novel Beyaz kale (1985; The White Castle), translated into English in 1990, met with enthusiastic international acclaim. Later novels—Kara kitap (1990; The Black Book, 1994), Yeni hayat (1994; The New Life, 1997), My Name Is Red (1998), and Kar (2002; Snow)—have stirred up intense reactions in Turkey and earned him a reputation abroad as one of the world’s major living writers. Although he continues to live and work in Istanbul, Pamuk spent several years in New York City, and often describes himself as a bridge between the East and the West.
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