Orhan Pamuk

On March 1, 1982, he married Aylin Turegun, a historian and they have a daughter, Ruya. However, their marriage ended in a divorce in 2001.

In 2010, he publicly announced that he was in a relationship with the Man Booker Prize-recipient, Kiran Desai.

Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and was raised in a wealthy family. He was educated at Robert College secondary school and then went on to study architecture at the Istanbul Technical University.

After three years, he left architecture school and focused his energies on writing. Thereafter, he shifted to the Institute of Journalism at the University of Istanbul and graduated from there in 1976. Soon, he began writing his first novel, ‘Darkness and Light’, while living with his mother.

His first novel, ‘Darkness and Light’ went on to become a co-winner of the 1979 Milliyet Press Novel Contest, along with Mehmet Eroglu. He won a number of critical prizes for his early work, which motivated him to write more.

He authored the historical novel, ‘The White Castle’ in 1985, which also received numerous awards. His reputation began to soar around this time and extended beyond the geographical boundaries of Turkey.

In 1990, he authored ‘The Black Book’, which became one of the most popular yet the most controversial reads at the time. Following the success of this novel, he went on to write the screenplay for the movie, ‘Secret Face’, based on this novel. By this time, Pamuk had already become a high-profile celebrity in Turkey.

In 1995, he published his book of essays, titled, ‘Other Colors’ which augmented his international reputation. It sky-rocketed even more with the publication of ‘My Name is Red’, which is also considered to be one of his greatest works.

One book after another, Pamuk was gaining immense popularity, which increased manifold with the publication of ‘Snow’ in 2002. Around this time, he also began to dabble with writing memoirs and travelogues and produced ‘Istanbul-Memories and the City’ in 2005.

‘Yeni Hayat’, translated as ‘The New Life’ in English, was one of Pamuk’s best-sellers and was published in 1994. It has been rated as one of his most ‘poignant’ works and sold over 2,00,000 copies in the first week of its publication.

‘My Name is Red’ is a blend of mystery, romance and philosophy and is set in 16th century Istanbul. The book has been translated in three different languages and has also been the recipient of a number of lucrative awards.