Orhan Pamuk
Ferit Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkeys most prominent novelists, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixtythree languages, making him the countrys bestselling writer.
Pamuk was born in Istanbul, in 1952, and grew up in a wealthy yet declining upperclass family an experience he describes in passing in his novels The Black Book and Cevdet Bey and His Sons, as well as more thoroughly in his personal memoir Istanbul. He was educated at Robert College secondary school in Istanbul and went on to study architecture at the Istanbul Technical University since it was related to his real dream career, painting. He left the architecture school after three years, however, to become a fulltime writer, and graduated from the Institute of Journalism at the University of Istanbul in 1976. From agesto 30, Pamuk lived with his mother, writing his first novel and attempting to find a publisher. He describes himself as a Cultural Muslim who associates the historical and cultural identification with the religion while not believing in a personal connection to God.
Source: Wikipedia