Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk to give Keynote at the Boston Book Festival
We are thrilled and honored that Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature, will give the keynote presentation at the inaugural Boston Book Festival. Pamuk’s new book, The Museum of Innocence, is his first since winning the Nobel Prize and has been eagerly anticipated by his English-language readers. The book was published in Turkey in 2008 but the English edition will be released a mere four days before the Festival. For those who can’t wait, read an excerpt in the September 7 issue of The New Yorker.
The Museum of Innocence, like most of Pamuk’s novels, is set in his beloved Istanbul. And as in most of his novels, the contradiction between the modern and the deeply traditional inherent in that vast city plays a subtle role. It is against this backdrop that The Museum of Innocence offers a stirring exploration of the nature of romantic attachment and the mysterious allure of collecting.
Pamuk is no stranger to the compulsion to collect. His early years were spent amassing a huge library of books about all things Turkish and his happiest moments were spent in second-hand bookstores.
Pamuk writes, “I was missing out on life by burying myself in books—but even when I'd realized this, I'd still keep buying books, as if to take revenge on the life I was fleeing. It is only now, so many years later, that I realize how happy those hours were…” As for Pamuk’s experience of love, we will leave that question to his interlocutor, Christopher Lydon, host of Radio Open Source. The conversation is sure to be engaging.
Please join us at the Boston Book Festival on Saturday, October 24 at 5:00pm in the sanctuary of Old South Church for the keynote presentation by Orhan Pamuk. The presentation is free and open to the public. Check back soon for further details.
For more reading:
Author’s website – www.orhanpamuk.org
Nobel Lecture – www.nobelprize.org