Turkish author scoops €100,000 prize

A TURKISH writer won the world’s richest literary prize yesterday for a Byzantine whodunnit set in 16th century Istanbul.

Orhan Pamuk’s murder mystery novel, My Name is Red, beat off stiff competition from other established writers and won its author the coveted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award worth €100,000.

Mr Pamuk beat seven other finalists including Ireland’s John McGahern whose book, That They May Face The Rising Sun, had been tipped to take the prize.

“It was a very strong short-list,” an awards spokesman said yesterday after a ceremony announcing the winner at Dublin City Hall. The announcement was made by the Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Mary Freehill. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Dermot Lacey, will host a dinner at City Hall in the writer’s honour on June 14 next where Mr Pamuk will receive his award.

Mr Pamuk is the author of six novels and is the recipient of major Turkish and international literary awards. He is one of Europe’s most prominent novelists and his work has been translated into more than 20 languages. He lives in Istanbul.

My Name is Red was translated from Turkish by Erdag Goknar. The prize money of €100,000 is divided, with €75,000 going to the winning author and €25,000 going to the translator.

My Name is Red is not only a mystery novel but a meditation on artistic devotion that intersects religion, art, sex and power. It is also a love story set amid the perils of religious repression in the Istanbul of the 1590s.

The international panel of judges said they had chosen Mr Pamuk’s novel for its “intense beauty, wit and amazing inventiveness”. They described My Name is Red as a “rare tour de force of literary imagination and philosophical speculation”.

Last year, the French writer Michel Houellebecq won the award for his novel Atomised.

The IMPAC award is unique as the original nominations are made by public libraries worldwide and are administered by Dublin City Library. It involves libraries from all corners of the globe, and is open to books written in any language.

Nominations for the 2003 award were made by 150 libraries representing 114 cities in 40 countries.

Mr Pamuk’s novel was nominated by libraries in Germany, Switzerland and the US.

The prize is the world’s biggest for a single work of fiction written in or translated into English.

The award is a joint initiative involving Dublin City Council, the Municipal Government of Dublin City, and the productivity improvement company IMPAC.