Being named the latest laureate of the Nobel Prize in literature is a "personal honour" as well as "an honour bestowed on the Turkish literature and culture I represent," author Orhan Pamuk said Thursday.

Pamuk, who earlier this year was charged with insulting the Turkish identity, was named this year's winner of the prestigious honour early Thursday morning. The Swedish Academy recognized his body of work, which deals with the nature of identity and clashing cultures.

"They called and woke me up, so I was a bit sleepy," the 54-year-old Pamuk, in the U.S. as a visiting professor at Columbia University, said in a telephone interview.

Orhan Pamuk is an outspoken author who has stood up for freedom of speech.
(Associated Press)

He added that he had no immediate plans to celebrate his win but was looking forward to returning to Turkey and spending time with his friends.

The Swedish Academy praised Pamuk who, "in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city, has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures," said academy secretary Horace Engdahl.

Pamuk, who was born and still lives in Istanbul, grew up in a wealthy family and studied architecture before completing his studies in journalism. He spent three years as an academic researcher in the U.S. in the late 1980s before returning to Istanbul.

"Pamuk has said that growing up, he experienced a shift from a traditional Ottoman family environment to a more Western-oriented lifestyle," the academy said in a statement.

Though he began writing in the 1970s, his first breakthrough on an international level came with his third novel, The White Castle, published in Turkey in 1985, with an English translation following in 1992. 

A historical novel set in 17th-century Istanbul, The White Castle explores the theme of identity through its story about a Venetian sold as a slave to a young scholar.

Recent bestsellers

Pamuk gained further renown with his 2000 book My Name is Red (published in English in 2002), another historical novel set in his hometown. A mix of murder-mystery, romance, and philosophical puzzles, My Name is Red  explores the tension between East and West.

The book was eventually published in about two dozen languages and went on to win the 2003 IMPAC Dublin Award, the world's most lucrative literary prize for a single work of fiction.

Pamuk's follow-up work also became a hit: Snow, published in 2002 with an English translation in 2005, explores the clash of political and religious culture in modern-day Turkey.

Prominent author, outspoken critic

At home in Turkey, Pamuk has developed a reputation as a social commentator, though the 54-year-old sees himself as simply a fiction writer.

However, he has often spoken out for freedom of speech, was one of the first authors in the Muslim world to condemn the fatwa against Salman Rusdie and was in favour of Kurdish political rights.

Late last year, Pamuk was charged with insulting the Turkish identity.

In a February 2005 interview with a Swiss newspaper, he criticized the Turkish government for refusing to recognize what he says was the massacre of Armenians during the First World War and mentioned that 30,000 Kurds and one million Armenians had been killed.

The charge and the pending trial drew international criticism against Turkey during a sensitive moment: the predominantly Muslim country had recently begun membership talks with the European Union.

However, in January, a Turkish court dropped the case.

Swedish Academy's controversial picks

In recent years, the Swedish Academy has developed a reputation for awarding the Nobel Literature Prize to controversial authors.

Pamuk's win follows that of British playwright Harold Pinter, an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy, and leftist, feminist Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, who has vehemently opposed to the rise of right-wing parties and politicians in her own country.

Pamuk's politics had nothing to do with his win, the Swedish Academy stressed.

"He is a controversial person in his own country, but on the other hand so are almost all of our prize winners," Engdahl said.

"He has stolen the novel, one can say, from us Westerners and has transformed it to something different from what we have ever seen before."

As the newest Nobel literature laureate, Pamuk's works — which have been translated into about 40 languages — will be exposed to an even wider audience. Other perks include the Nobel cash prize of approximately $1.6 million, the re-issuing of out-of-print works and a general boost in sales for works in bookstores.

Pamuk is scheduled to receive his Nobel medal at a lavish banquet in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel.

With files from the Associated Press