MANUSCRIPT NOTES FOR HER INTERVIEW WITH ORHAN PAMUK AT THE 2006 PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL

N.p.: S.i., 2006. Manuscript notes for Atwood's conversation with Orhan Pamuk at the PEN World Voices Festival, hosted by Cooper Union on April 25, 2006. The Turkish author had just dodged a jail sentence in his home country for publicly denigrating Turkish identity (by mentioning in a 2005 interview that a million Armenians had been killed and that he was the only Turk who wanted to talk about it), and had been invited by PEN to deliver the first Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture. He was introduced by Salman Rushdie, who acted as master of ceremonies, and after delivering his lecture, he adjourned to a table at center stage for a conversation with Margaret Atwood. She began by thanking Pamuk "for a very clear and necessary speech. It's a sad world when people can get into so much trouble merely for stating the obvious negative. Power has an aversion to truth about itself." Her notes reveal the insightful questions that would guide the conversation that evening. She pressed him about the themes of shame/guilt/pride that appeared in his speech and in his work, the difficulties of "the saying of things that are unsayable," and asking Pamuk to unpack his assertion that a "novelist must identify with all characters, especially the bad ones." She moved the conversation to biographical matters, asking about his background, and when he decided to become a writer. The evening concluded with her question: "In a society riddled with power struggle and ideological debate, is it possible to create a non-political work - if one did, wouldn't it be read politically anyway?" A historic event, connecting the Booker Prize-winning author with Pamuk, who six months later would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Manuscript material by Atwood is seldom seen in commerce. Three leaves of lined, spiral-bound notebook paper, measuring 14.5cm x 21cm (5.75" x 8 3/8"), bearing Atwood's holograph notes on rectos. 54 lines (277 words), signed "Margaret Atwood / April 26, 2006," and then as "Peggy Atwood" directly beneath. Mild handling, tiny tears along the left edge, else Near Fine, housed in a custom clamshell case.