Orhan Pamuk: Winning the Nobel Prize Made Everything Political

It seems as though you're trying to find a balance in your life between living in Istanbul and traveling, between being a political person and being an artist?

Yes, I have to do that. I'm not an exile for example, and they try to pigeonhole me as an exile. "No," I say, "I'm not an exile." I go outside of Turkey by myself, if I want I can live here 365 days a year if I enjoy it.

Living in New York during the semesters that I stay there and traveling is a nice thing, but I don't want to undermine and make a victim of myself. One reason perhaps is that I come from a culture that was never colonized and never victimized. I don't enjoy representing myself as a victim of international powers, nor the victim of a Turkish state. I am on my feet, happy, living, enjoying writing books, and so on. That is how I look at my life.

And you don't want to be a bridge builder?

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Pamuk was tried in Turkey for insulting national identity

Bridge is a cliche imposed on me just because I'm a Turk and of course the first thing everyone says about Turkey is that it's between east and west. But before being a bridge, you have to understand the humanity of the culture, its shadows, dark places, unreasonable sights, its aspirations, its hopes for the future, its daily moments, its weaknesses, its misery.

My job is to see that before saying "I'm a bridge" or something like that. That kind of political representation or agenda -- I don't have that. I am essentially a literary person, who writes stories. Yes, in my books there is also a philosophical side. I'm an essayist, I also make judgments about cultures, politics, but essentially I am a storyteller first, and mainly of stories about people.