I am not a writer in exile: Orhan Pamuk

Hay-On-Wye, Wales, May 30: Nobel prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, threatened by a suspect in the murder of a journalist, said he had recently been in Turkey and did not consider himself a writer in exile.

The 2006 Literature Laureate's safety became an issue after Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered in Istanbul in January.

A key suspect warned Pamuk to be careful and some media reports had said Pamuk was living in exile.

However, Pamuk, who won the Nobel for novels including 'Snow' and 'My Name is Red', told an audience at the Hay literature festival in Britain he had recently visited Turkey.

Asked about suggestions he was a writer in exile, he said, "There is some political pressure on me. I was just in Turkey.

There were some misunderstandings and clarifying these misunderstandings took some energy but we should not dwell on them too much here." Pamuk was prosecuted in 2005 under laws restricting freedom of expression in Turkey after telling a Swiss newspaper that 1 million Armenians had died in Turkey in World War One and 30,000 Kurds had perished more recently.

Charges against him were dropped after his case triggered criticism from the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join.

Pamuk said yesterday that he planned to publish his next novel, 'Museum of Innocence', about an upper-middle class man in contemporary Istanbul obsessed with a cousin, in Turkey in December.

Reuters>