Orhan Pamuk Q&A: ‘One fears death threats and hate campaigns, yet one is also afraid of being silent’

Tell me about your new novel, Nights of Plague. What were its various inspirations?

I began to think about a plague novel 40 years ago. At first, I was planning to set it in medieval Ottoman times. After this initial enthusiasm, for a while I thought about writing a plague novel, discussing and arguing against the orientalist notion that Muslims were more fatalistic compared to Christians. I gave that up.

Six years ago, I discovered and read about anti-cholera quarantine uprisings in Poland and Russia in the 1890s. I read about a third bubonic plague pandemic which began in China circa 1894. My reading taught me that humanity behaved more or less the same during each pandemic. First denial; then the numbers go up; then all sorts of conspiracy theories. Sometimes governments fell, or they ran away, or volunteers took over and replaced the governments. But there were always uprisings. And governments always get authoritarian to impose quarantine measures.

Five years ago, the Turkish government was becoming increasingly repressive so I thought it was a good time to write my short, allegorical plague novel. But it turned out to be a long epic, since I enjoyed writing about period details with precision. Nights of Plague is a realist description of the decline and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the story of three couples trapped on a typical Ottoman island in the Mediterranean.

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What was your experience of the Covid-19 pandemic? Did it teach you things about yourself and about society?

In March-April 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic hit all of us. I realised that in spite of all the research I did my fictional characters were less afraid of dying than I was, although the bubonic plague killed one in three – much deadlier than the Coronavirus. So I generously injected my own fears into my characters.

Running themes in your work are the tension between east and west, and between tradition and modernity. As a Turkish writer teaching in the United States, what do you see as the key differences between the two countries, and their strengths and weaknesses?

Trump was a reactionary populist right-winger, who destroyed women’s right to abortion etc, but he could not harm free speech in the US. Whereas now there is almost no free speech in Turkey.

[ Silent House, by Orhan Pamuk ]

You have been prosecuted and threatened for speaking out about the Armenian genocide and repression of the Kurds, and you have a bodyguard. Do you have to be fearless to be a good writer?

It is impossible to be fearless. One fears death threats and one fears hate campaigns, which are very popular in Turkey... Yet one is also afraid of being afraid and of being silent. I sometimes talk in spite of fear. I am used to it. I have been talking to power for the last 35 years. It is not easy but it is better than being silenced. It takes a lot of effort and consumes one’s energy and you worry all the time. But I am happy that I chose the risky and dangerous path.

You have won many major prizes, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the International Dublin Literary Award. Apart from the prize money, what have they meant?

The prizes gave me the happiness of recognition of my labours and love of writing novels. The prizes also gave me new readers. Before the Dublin prize, my books were translated into 34 languages. I remember that when I received the Nobel Prize I was already translated to 46 languages. Now my novels are translated into 64 languages. I owe some of my prizes to readers perhaps. It is both a joy and a responsibility to have so many readers in so many countries. I sometimes write thinking of them and sometimes I only follow my own humours.

Have you ever gone on a literary pilgrimage?

Yes, I am a museum person and I have visited many writers’ museums in the mood of a pilgrim. I went to Boston to see Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House with Seven Gables. I went to Oxford, Mississippi just to see William Faulkner’s house. I visited Tolstoy’s house in Yasnaya Polyana to be close to the master, to see his estate, his land and his house. As a literary pilgrim I was disappointed by the Flaubert House in Rouen, because it was not rich. I have also visited many artists’ home museums. The best is the Gustave Moreau Museum in Paris.

What is the best writing advice you have heard? Or, what advice would you give to your younger writing self?

Don’t take advice from others. Follow your own rules and invent those rules.

Which of your books are you proudest of, and why?

My Name is Red; Nights of Plague; Snow; Black Book. I gave so much of myself from my inner demons for these books. I worked so much to get these books right.

[ Orhan Pamuk’s new novel: a slow-moving drawl of a yarn ]

Who or what do you admire the most?

Creativity, hard work, modesty.

Which current book, film, TV show or podcast would you recommend?

Roma by the Mexican film director Alfonso Cuarón.

[ A refreshing trip to the early house ]

The best and worst things about where you live?

Istanbul is full of my memories but there is too much traffic.

Which public event affected you most?

In May Day of 1977 in Istanbul when some mysterious people began to fire at the crowd of 100,000 people gathered in Taksim. I was in the middle of the square.

The most remarkable place you have visited?

The deserted mysterious town of Fatehpur Sikri in the Agra District of Uttar Pradesh, India. This architectural wonder was built as the capital of the Mughal Empire by the Emperor Akbar but abandoned without a reason. When I first saw this wonderful place my imagination almost automatically invented many realistic tales and fairytales. Nights of Plague is one of them.

Your most treasured possession?

My diaries, journals and notebooks in which I write and draw every day.

Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?

Tolstoy and Proust. They are perceptive of all sorts of little hesitations of human spirit and they can write about their observations very clearly.

Who is your favourite fictional character?

Julian Sorel in Stendhal’s The Red and The Black. He has immense vitality, intelligence but yet he is very naive....He can effortlessly enter and explore all corners of the society he is living in and yet never lose his charm and playfulness.

A book to make me laugh?

I admire the novels of great Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. They always make me laugh. Even the name of Thomas Bernhard is enough to make me smile tenderly.

Nights of Plague is published by Faber & Faber