Orhan Pamuk

Ferit Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and academic who received the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature; one of Turkey's most prominent novelists, he has sold over 13 million books in 63 languages, making him the country's best-selling writer. His novels include Silent House, The White Castle, The Black Book, The New Life, My Name Is Red, and Snow, and he is the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches writing and comparative literature. Born in Istanbul, he is Turkey's first Nobel laureate, and his willingness to write about contentious historical and political events, including a 2005 statement acknowledging the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, has put him at risk of censure in his homeland.