Being the biggest sensation of this year’s Lahore Literary Festival, Orhan Pamuk, who spoke at the opening ceremony on Friday, was fittingly invited to also conclude the final day of the festival on Sunday, among other sessions.

The Nobel laureate was in conversation with Shahid Zahid for a session titled ‘Writing Away from the Centre: How literature can be used to shape a more democratic world’. During the session, he spoke about his novels; the themes, writing style, inspiration and goals. Although the discussion was relatively similar to the one on Friday, the hall was once again packed to its full capacity.

Mr Pamuk began by explaining the title of the session by talking about his experience of being a Turkish writer living in Istanbul and teaching courses in English, every year in New York. First, he commented on the problem of language barrier by sharing how unlike Pakistan, where English is a second language, Turkey has one common language that is spoken and read by everyone including the common people, which restricts him to write in any other language other than Turkish. Second, he considers himself an expert in ‘International Muslim bourgeoisie’ having spent a lot of time with them in his adult life as well as while growing up as part of a secular, ‘Western looking’ family, however, has always cared about the larger issues affecting the common people. Third, he explained that Turkey had been keen on adopting Western ideals when Turkish ruling elite and intellectuals failed to form their own unique identity after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The new Turkish Republic which was created afterwards started imitating the West by wanting to be part of Europe and adopt ‘European liberal ideals’. In the midst of this, he thought about the common people who were close to culture and religion in Turkey and if they agreed with the elite class and if they were enthusiastic about Western ideas in the same way. It had created a visible tension between the people and the ruling class that Mr Pamuk wanted to highlight in his work. Having lived in Istanbul and enjoying a privileged life, he therefore felt like he was living at the ‘centre’ which was Istanbul, while what surrounded him was ‘provincial.’ Over the years, working as a writer and an academic and exposing himself to other experiences, he now calls himself a ‘provincial person.’

As a novelist, he has always been interested in subjects like poverty and religion among others that he finds hard to relate to since he has lived a different life. It was after 50 years of writing that he felt it was important for him to enforce himself to identify with other people who were not like him. Giving the example pf his novel ‘Snow’ he recounted that before writing the novel he went to live in a small city in Turkey, Kars, where he connected with the local people, newspapers etc to be able to write a story.

Talking about his inspiration for his characters, once again giving the example of ‘Snow’ he said he wanted to comment on Islamic terrorism by showing an angry Islamic fundamentalist who he did not agree with, but it helped the reader understand Islamic fundamentalism with the help of an authentic character. He said that novels were not about ourselves but needed to be balanced with others’ identities; since world literature had a broader hold on the world and should help us learn about the humanity of others.

Listing various lectures he has conducted as part of his academic career, he pointed out that due to his interest in becoming a painter between the age of 7 and 22 years, they have been about relationship between painting and literature, visual writing among others. For Mr Pamuk, a novel is like a picture that he has in his mind which he then writes. He, therefore, feels that descriptions are an essential part of the writing.

In the end, he briefly talked about his upcoming novel, ‘Nights of Plague.’ He also narrated a funny anecdote about how in Turkey when his novels were being confiscated by the police, a policeman came to him and asked him to sign one of the confiscated novels for his wife; something one can expect to happen to the bestselling Turkish author in history.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2020