Orhan Pamuk talks to Boyd Tonkin

Nobel-prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk talks to The Independent journalist and chair of judges for the 2016 Booker international prize Boyd Tonkin about his new and ninth novel A Strangeness in My Mind – an unforgettable love story and a modern epic. It is a rare opportunity to hear one of the world’s most influential writers.

The novel’s hero is a street seller of a traditional Turkish beverage Mevlut Karataş. The story follows the love between Mevlut and his girlfriend and Mevlut’s life over four decades selling at nights on the streets of Istanbul and working in various jobs by day. He witnesses the transformations in Turkey, all the time wondering what is the ‘strangeness’ in his mind that makes him different to all the others.

Pamuk was the second youngest person to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature when he won the award in 2006. His books have been translated into 46 languages and he is also the holder of The Peace Prize, the most prestigious award in Germany in the field of culture, along with many other international literary awards.

Pamuk’s many celebrated works include The White Castle, Snow and The Museum of Innocence. His work often focuses on the tensions between Western and Eastern values and is also characterised by a fascination with literature and the arts.

Tonkin is senior writer and columnist at The Independent and former literary editor at the newspaper. He is a regular broadcaster on BBC arts programmes and has been a judge on the Booker, Whitbread and Commonwealth prizes.