APersonIndependent states
Orhan Pamuk
Novelist (b. 1952), the first Turkish writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (2006).
Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and left his architecture studies for literature. His first novel, Cevdet Bey and His Sons, appeared in 1982.
In novels such as The Black Book, My Name Is Red, Snow and The Museum of Innocence he explores the tension between East and West and past and present, and the memory and melancholy of Istanbul; his memoir Istanbul: Memories and the City introduced the world to the city's hüzün.
In 2006 the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize as a writer "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures". In 2012 he opened the Museum of Innocence in Istanbul, based on his novel of the same name.
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Updated: October 2, 2026