The Nobel committee in 2006 awarded the literature prize to Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures." He is the first and only Turkish citizen to win the award.
Some observers saw political implications in the European committee awarding the Nobel to Mr. Pamuk, a vocal critic of the killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Much of Europe labels the killings a genocide, a classification that Turkey denies. Arne Ruth, the former editor-in-chief of the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, told The New York Times that Pamuk “is a symbol of the relationship between Europe and Turkey, and they couldn’t have overlooked this when they made their choice.”
