But no one believes in that way what he reads in a novel...Oh yes they do. If only to see themselves as wise and superior and humanistic, they need to think of us as sweet and funny, and convince themselves that they sympathize with the way we are and even love us.

Pamuk's lawyer Haluk İnanıcı subsequently confirmed that charges had been dropped. The novel blends mystery romance and philosophical puzzles in a setting of 16th century Istanbul. Personal life

Pamuk's elder brother Şevket Pamuk who sometimes appears as a fictional character in Orhan Pamuk's work is a professor of economics internationally recognised for his work in history of economics of the Ottoman Empire working at Bogazici University in Istanbul.

As well as the Nobel Prize in Literature (the first Nobel Prize to be awarded to a Turkish citizen) Pamuk is the recipient of numerous other literary awards. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists his work has sold over eleven million books in sixty languages making him the country's best-selling writer. Ferit Orhan Pamuk (generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk; born 7 June 1952) is a Turkish novelist screenwriter academic and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.