Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s best-known modern novelist and winner of the Nobel prize in 2006, became a pariah overnight for speaking out about the Turkish role in the Armenian genocide. In February, 2005 he stated in an interview with a Swiss newspaper, “Thirty thousand Kurds, and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody dares to talk about it.”

After that, Pamuk’s books were banned, there were riots, and threats were made on his life. He was even forced to leave the country for a time. Filmed after he returned to his native city of Istanbul, he avows his passionate attachment to his country; at the same time, he insists the nation should know the truth about its history, and that there must be freedom of speech.

Formerly known as “the sick man of Europe”, Turkey suffers from a deep insecurity about its identity. The heavy-handed state response to Pamuk’s remarks in a Swiss newspaper shows why the country faces so many hurdles when it seeks to join the European Union.

Middle East Studies Association, 2007