2006

Banquet speech

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen I am deeply grateful for the honor bestowed on me by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is an honor I share with many collaborators. My wife Yahli has been my closest collaborator. She has borne a double burden. She is the wife…

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Prose

English Excerpt from Istanbul: Memories of a City (Istanbul: Hatıralar Ve Şehir). Here we come to the heart of the matter: I’ve never left Istanbul – never left the houses, streets and neighbourhoods of my childhood. Although I’ve lived in other districts from time to time, fifty years on I find myself…

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Banquet speech

Why do you write? This is the question I’ve been asked most often in my writing career. Most of the time they mean this: What is the point, why do you give your time to this strange and impossible activity? Why do you write … You have to give an excuse, an…

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Prose

Turkish Alıntı: Istanbul: Hatıralar Ve Şehir Asıl konuya geldik: Doğduğum günden itibaren, yaşadığım evleri, sokakları, mahalleleri hiç terketmedim. Elli yıl sonra (arada İstanbul’un başka yerlerinde yaşamama rağmen) gene Pamuk Apartmanı’nda, annemin beni kucağına alıp dünyayı ilk gösterdiği ve ilk fotoğraflarımın çekildiği yerde yaşıyor olmamın, İstan­bul’un bir başka yerindeki öteki Orhan fikriyle, bu teselliyle bir ilişkisi…

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