PARIS (Armenpress)–Turkish author Orhan Pamuk–who is being prosecuted in Turkey for statemen’s he made about Turkish history–especially the Armenian Genocide–was awarded the prestigious French Medicis Prize for foreign literature for his novel "Snow," the jury announced Monday.
"Snow," which has been translated into at least a dozen languages–is a complex novel about a Turkish writer and political exile who returns home after 12 years of living abroad to confront his past and the present reality of his homeland.
The 53-year-old Pamuk has been the target of Turkish nationalists and charged with insulting Turkey’s national character after he was quoted in a Swiss newspaper as saying that Turkey killed 30,000 Kurds and a million Armenia’s.
Pamuk is expected to stand trial on the charges in December and faces up to three years in prison if convicted.