Suso de Toro on Orhan Pamuk's dream

The Spanish writer Suso de Toro wonders whether the modern Turkey defended by Orhan Pamuk really exists. "What if Pamuk were fighting abroad for our acceptance of a Turkey that is not actually real while fighting at the same time in his country for it to accept to become the European Turkey that he desires? The writer is fighting against chaos, he has nostalgia for a harmony that does not exist, never has and that never will. ... I do not believe that this Ideal Turkey will come into being. Writers and dreamers are convinced that at some point in history everything might be turned around and fall into place. ... Today's Turkey has given birth to a writer who is dreaming of another Turkey: he has created another country, another world, another history and is struggling to impose all this onto reality. This is what literature is, an absurd, but necessary effort. It fails in the public, collective sphere, but triumphs in the individual, intimate sphere."

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