Baba Novelist In Turkey

Orhan Pamuk's winning the Nobel Prize caused a mixture of anger and delight in his home country. In the Guardian, Elif Shafak offers an explanation, on the expected role of the novelist in Turkey.

So the novel - a literary genre which was new, modern and, unlike the old tradition of poetry, utterly western - gained a unique position. No wonder then that a novelist is always more than a novelist in Turkey. He is, first and foremost, a public figure. Novelists are the "babas", the fathers of their readers. They are loved and hated, looked up to and looked down upon. This is a society which is writer-oriented, not writing-oriented.

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