Non-English authors don't get better representation: Orhan Pamuk

Agitated by the categorisation often assigned to non-Western writers by the Western world, Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk feels non-English authors do not get better representation globally.

The author, who did not seem to be in the best of humour during a discussion at the Jaipur Literature Festival, said that even an event like the one here was not a true representation of different voices in literature because it was dominated by those who wrote in English.

Pamuk took to the dais yesterday with his companion --Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai, Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela and Nam Le.

He said that being a writer from the non-Western world, posed a series of problems such as the question of human experience being marginalised only because it was not written in the language of the Western world.

"My essential concern is with non-Western writers who do not write in English. They don't find true representation. Most of the writers at a festival like Jaipur are in English. This is because may be 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. This is a major deficiency," Pamuk said.

The author, who writes in Turkish and bases all his stories in his beloved city Istanbul, seemed peeved with the Western literary world, which constantly tries to "provicialise" 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. When non-Western authors express this humanity through their work their humanity is reduced to their nation's humanity," he said.

Pamuk also echoed Desai's fear of being seen as a representative of the country she was coming from.

"Another problem which is the consequence of all these problems and Kiran also spoke about it, is the issue of representation. 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," he said.

Pamuk, best known for his widely translated works such as 'My Name is Red', 'Snow' and 'Museum of Innocence', said that West is actually a minority but since the other voices don't get the chance to emerge because of several problems, most of the human experience is getting lost.

Desai spoke of the anxiety of being between places and mentioned that after September 11, the American literary world could do little but take cognisance of the world outside and this included the world of books as well.