Orhan Pamuk signs books at the first day of the Jaipur literature festival. Photograph: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images The Nobel prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk has complained that the majority of human experience is being ignored because the literature that describes it is not written in English. And he has criticised the response of British and American literary critics to his work, saying they perceive him in narrow terms defined by his nationality.Speaking at the Jaipur literary festival in India, Pamuk, whose much-feted novels including My Name is Red, Snow and The Museum of Innocence were all written in Turkish, lamented the western world's dominance over literary culture."Most of the writers at a festival such as Jaipur [write] in English," he said. "This is maybe because English is the official language here. But for those writing in other languages, their work is rarely translated and never read. So much of human experience is marginalised."Pamuk, who teaches humanities at Columbia University, also accused literary critics of constantly trying to "provincialise" his work. "When I write about love, the critics in the US and Britain say that this Turkish writer writes very interesting things about Turkish love. Why can't love be general? I am always resentful and angry of this attempt to narrow me and my capacity to experience this humanity," he complained. "You are squeezed and narrowed down, cornered down as a writer whose book is considered only the representation of his national voice and a little bit of anthropological curiosity."Writer William Dalrymple, the director of the Jaipur festival, said there was "no question that English is an increasingly dominant and imperial language," and called it "a major problem". Speaking from India as the festival drew to a close yesterday, Dalrymple said: "Even other major European languages find it difficult to get an Eng! lish aud ience for their work. The English are famously tardy and unreceptive towards other languages, and it is particularly hard to get American publishing houses to take on translations." And publication in English is essential for global exposure, he believes: "The great Bengali novelist Chowringhee Sankar has sold more than 3m books, but he got a lot more attention the first time he was published in English, when only 3,000 copies of his novel were produced."The Jaipur festival, which this year saw more than 50,000 visitors, offers a platform for authors writing in minority languages, Dalrymple added. "We're pleased to provide a platform where a Tamil novelist can meet a Gujarati or Bengali one. But there's a whole caste system of languages Tamil speakers feel oppressed by Hindi, for example."Publisher Christopher MacLehose, a long-time supporter of work in translation and the man who first brought Swedish author Stieg Larsson to the UK, said Pamuk was "absolutely right, as simple as that". He added: "There are 14 Indian languages represented in this year's Jaipur festival. How easy is it for those languages to be translated in a country where everybody speaks better English than anyone in this country?"But the Guardian's literary editor Claire Armitstead disputed Pamuk's take on his reviewers, saying novels such as My Name is Red and The Museum of Innocence were rooted in their particular social context, and it was "entirely appropriate" that critics respond on that basis.
Comments