Turkish Lit in Translation Reading Group: Snow by Orhan Pamuk - September 24

Turkish Literature in Translation Reading Group: Snow by Orhan Pamuk
with Translator Maureen Freely
Thursday September 24, 2020 • Zoom
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Register to attend this event here.

The Turkish Literature in Translation Reading Group aims to gather those who are interested in Turkish literature at UT together. It meets every month throughout the semester and the discussions are held in English. This semester, due to COVID-19 circumstances, all of our discussions will be held virtually, through Zoom. The meetings are open to the entire UT community, as well as interested individuals outside UT.

Fall 2020 will be devoted to three well-known Turkish novels: Orhan Pamuk’s Snow, Sevgi Soysal’s Noontime in Yenisehir and Kemal Varol’s Wûf. The group's discussion of each novel will include a Q&A session with its English translator. Below is the detailed program.

In our first meeting, we will “dive into” Turkish literature with an internationally renowned work: the Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s seventh novel Snow. Snow revolves around a poet recently returned from exile, who sets out for the city of Kars, intending to write on the rise of political Islam for Turkey's leading secular newspaper. During the three-day blizzard that begins as he arrives, the city endures a compressed version of every misfortune that has visited the republic over three or more decades. To read the book today, almost two decades after its publication, is to see just how accurately it also charts what is yet to come.

About the translator Maureen Freely: Freely is a writer with seven novels to her name and many other strings to her bow. Well-known as a translator of Orhan Pamuk, she has also brought several classics and works by Turkey’s rising novelists into English. For many years she worked as a journalist in London, writing about literature, social justice, and human rights. As chair of the Translator’s Association and more recently as President and Chair of English PEN, she has campaigned for writers and freedom of expression internationally. She teaches at the University of Warwick, UK.

Sponsored by: the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, the Program in Comparative Literature