TEHRAN -- Orhan Pamuk’s interest in Iranian traditional literature and arts is observable not only in his works, notably in “My Name Is Red”, but also in the fact that he made a trip to Iran several years ago. Interviews that have been published in the Guardian go further to prove his keen interest is Persian culture.

In his most famous book, “My Name Is Red” it is noticeable that Pamuk has studied Iranian literature and arts, especially traditional paintings, as well as the history of Persian art. He especially honors the school of Tabriz paintings in Eastern traditional art. Contrary to some countries whose people try to introduce Rumi as a non-Iranian poet, Orhan Pamuk names him as a Persian poet together with Sadi, Attar etc…
Following is an internet interview between the Mehr News Agency and the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk who won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Q: How can literature help modern, industrialized people?
A: We shouldn’t look at literature as something that helps people. “Help” is a strong word. Literature can describe and make us understand that it is others that give us a sense of life and also give us the pleasure of reading and that’s the only help that we can get from literature.
Q: How do you see the situation of today’s world literature?
A: Till recently Western civilization was a powerful force in world literature. What everyone called “world literature” was in fact European literature. But now things are changing. Asian writers (especially Chinese, Indian and Persian) are slowly entering the world of literature. World literature is no longer only European literature.
3. According to some critics you have created a new and modern method of novel-writing, for example in “My Name Is Red”, if so, please clarify for us what inspired you in this respect?
A: The formula I use in my writing is a combination of post-modernist narrative techniques with Turkish traditional literature. In “My Name Is Red”, I tried my best to combine these two to write an experimental, modern, European novel. My formula for writing a novel is this: try to combine two different things that have never been put together before, and do this stylistically.
Q: You are known as a political novelist, how can a novel transfer a policy successfully, as one cannot say in politics what is right or wrong?
A: I am not a political novelist. I wrote a political novel, “Snow”, which, because of the international situation, because of the sensation about Islam in the West, became a bestseller. But I don’t consider myself a political novelist. Even “Snow”, which besides being about politics, is in fact about the morality of finding happiness in unhappy times.
Q: In your interview with the Guardian you have mentioned that you have been inspired by Persian and Arabic traditional literature notably in the work “Black Book.” How much are you familiar with Persian literature?
A: Of course Persian literature, starting from Rumi and Attar has left its mark especially on modern Turkish poetry. But I am not well-versed in classic Persian culture. I mostly read the Turkish or English translations of Rumi, Attar, Sadi and others. As for modern Persian literature, of course, I know the “Blind Owl” by Sadeq Hedayat.
Q: What is the effect of traditional literature on modern literature?
There is no formula for this. This is a demanding challenge that every author faces, especially in non-Western countries... Classical literature and novels are so interesting and strong that there is a danger of losing one’s own local identity and there is also a danger of not achieving the inner aspects of a nation’s spirit. Most of the time, writers who are well-versed in world literature are worried about tradition, because they love and are interested in it. But they have anxiety over representing and belonging to tradition, the past. So we cannot talk about the general effects of modern literature. Of course all the traditional arts and crafts and ways of production have been destroyed by modernity. A good example, as I wrote in “My Name Is Red”, is the tradition of Islamic painting. The Persian-Ottoman tradition of painting has been destroyed by Post-Renaissance Western painting. I even wrote a book about this, but it is hard to make a generalization, a formula, to pin down, to analyze the effect of tradition on modernity or vice-versa.