ISTANBUL – Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate, had the idea that he was finishing his last book, about a plague epidemic in the Ottoman Empire in 1901, when the coronavirus pandemic began, and then returned to work.
So, when “Nights of Plague” comes out, art will imitate life.
Pamuk, 68, from Istanbul, teaches at Columbia University in New York.
One of the main themes of Pamuk’s paintings is a comparison and contrast of the Western and Eastern Islamic worlds. Having explored this intersection for about 3 decades, he began writing “Plague Nights” four years ago.
“The plague,” he said, “is one of the litter tests that is helping you think about the difference between classic Western and Eastern Muslim societies. “
When asked how the plague-ravaged world described in his next e-book compares to today’s world, Pamuk replied: “There are unexpected similarities between the ancient plague pandemics and today’s coronavirus. Not because microbes, viruses and germs are similar, but because humans” [reactions are] similar. “
These reactions come with the “government rejection” of the lifestyles of an epidemic and its severity. A government in denial is one that makes mistakes in its initial response. “Denial is inevitable,” Pamuk said, “because [governments] do not need to listen to the news [of a pandemic]. No one likes quarantines. “
The first thing that happens when a new virus begins to spread, Pamuk said, is that the government denies what is going on. “Secondly, ” he continued, “he fights in a very clumsy way and everyone is angry.
Another thing that is not unusual between 120 years ago and today, he said, is that other people are beginning to make rumors “about who caused this plague” and conspiracy theories, since coronavirus is “China’s response to the United States. “
Today’s pandemic has led Pamuk to marvel at one point: through the amount of concern he has caused.
“I was so scared in my novel,” he said, adding that “the characters in my novel weren’t as scared as I was afraid. So [I came back and] scared them more in the novel. “
He said television and other communication channels that broadcast scenes like chaos at an Italian hospital around the world are stoking concern today. “In the past,” Pamuk said, “the possibility of being killed by plague 10 times higher [than the death of a COVID-19 infection today], however, other people were less afraid. “
“We are visually afraid,” he added, “seeing the corpses, the numbers and the spread [of the virus]. “
Another difference between 120 years ago and today, he said, is that governments are better able to take matters into their own hands, at least once the truth becomes masked. “
Today, even Turkey’s Islamist government “behaved like an ultra-secular mosque,” Pamuk said. “My prejudice that they would not, but the Turkish government treated him well, surprisingly. [And] because President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an Islamist, no one has criticized his orders to close mosques for Friday prayers. “
Pamuk said there were two points in this trend, the dramatic improvement in literacy rates in many countries over decades, and the ease of access to information, thanks to technological advances. “Today, 98% [of the population] can read and write, [compared to] 3% to 5% in the early 20th century,” he said.
The highest point of literacy and the maximum availability of a form are paying off globally, in the form of “immense collaboration of the population,” Pamuk said.
COVID-19, he said, “has united humanity more strongly than ever. “Seeing what’s in New York, Australia and around the world, he says, allows us to share our experiences by percentage. “We’re all in the same boat, ” he said. ” This has never happened before in [human history]. “
Pamuk said it was vital that countries paint more strongly with each other. Under pressure so that other people don’t kid yourself through “superficial xenophobia. “For the first time, “humanity has the same fear and is global. “
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