Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps

that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds.

This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

He has defined his own beloved city as much as Dickens did London.

Yet his novels are as open to Sufi stories as to the history of European fiction.

His passion is literature, yet history has coerced him into a political limelight.

He was brought up a secularist, but his novels are acclaimed partly for their grasp of just

how much religion matters to people. My guest in extended conversation this evening is Orhon Pamuk,

winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.

His novels include The Wonderful the Black Book from 1990, the magisterial snow marinated in politics and religion

and set in a remote Turkish town and his most recent, The Museum of Innocence.

There's also a wealth of non-fiction,

including the memoir Istanbul. From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see. Somewhere in the streets of Istanbul, in a house, resembling ours, there lived another Orhan,

so much like me that he could pass for my twin, even my double.

I can't remember where I got this idea or how it came to me.

It must have emerged from a web of rumours,

misunderstandings, illusions and fears.

Ohan Pamuk is condemned to live in interesting times.

Only last week the Turkish government attempted to ban Twitter.

Pamuk signed the letter of protest,

and yet days later, there was

...