Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk (pictured) seeks to build his fictional Museum Of Innocence as an actual museum. The museum will be located in Pamuk’s hometown Istanbul, Turkey, and he hopes to open before the end of 2010.
Turk Net Haber reports: “Pamuk has been carrying out the preliminary activities for the establishment of the museum in Istanbul’s Cukurcuma district for a long time. The museum is expected to make a poetic and documentary representation of the culture of Istanbul from 1950s until the present day, through various objects used in daily life, photographs, paintings and movies.”
In 2008, Pamuk published The Museum Of Innocence in Turkey. Maureen Freely handled the English translation and that came out in 2009 from Random House’s Alfred A. Knopf imprint. Freely has worked alongside Pamuk as the translator for five of his novels including The Black Book, Snow, Other Colors, Istanbul, and The Museum Of Innocence.
Pamuk was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. Right now, there are several betting pools watching contenders for this year’s Nobel Prize. At the last check, Swedish author Tomas Transtromer has the best chance with 5/1 odds. But a dark horse has emerged; American novelist Cormac McCarthy was given 8/1 odds only after this weekend. Japan’s Haruki Murakami and Autstralia’s Les Murray both have 11/1 odds of winning the prize.