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You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

I'm KCRW and KCRW.com.

I'm Michael Silverblatt and this is Bookworm.

You know, last week I had such a good time talking to Orhan Pamuk about the Museum of

Innocence, his new novel published by Knav,

and I realized that there were subjects that I want to talk to him about that we couldn't even begin to address.

And so this week, once again, Orhan Pamuk,

the author of the Museum of Innocence, Nobel Prize winner,

author, the other novels began in America, at least

with the White Castle, to the Black Book, The New Life, My Name is Red, Snow, and now the Museum

of Innocence.

Along the way, there are two books, one on Istanbul, and one called Other Colors, Essays and a Story.

And these take up a question that has been on my mind recently.

You know, a member of the Nobel Prize Committee created quite a stir in America around a year ago, saying that he did not feel that in America there was, at this time, a global literature worthy of the Nobel Prize.

And you've addressed the issues of creating a national Turkish literature. What is the relationship between a national literature to a global literature?

First, one does not begin writing books concerned and to address

these issues. One wants to explore the areas, lives, things you know about lives, things you want to

express through literature. Then the more famous you get, the more you want to express through literature.

...