Turkish Translator At Duke Has Surprise Bestseller
A Duke visiting professor has helped a Turkish cultural icon find an audience in America with his highly praised translations
Friday, August 8, 2003
In the fall of 1998, Erdag Goknar, a graduate student living in Istanbul, got a phone call from Turkey's foremost novelist, Orhan Pamuk. "Come to my writing studio and let's talk," Pamuk said.
They met in Pamuk's studio overlooking the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. The novelist told Goknar his proposal: He had read a couple of Goknar's essays and wanted to know if Goknar might be interested in translating Pamuk's latest novel.
Goknar, who was working on his Ph.D. in Turkish literature and history, had never published a major translation before. Pamuk was not just a bestselling author, but a cultural icon in Turkey.
But after submitting a sample translation, Goknar was chosen over three other candidates for the job. "It was pretty incredible," said Goknar, who is now at Duke as a visiting assistant professor affiliated with the Center for Slavic, Eurasian & East European Studies.
"My Name is Red," published in English in September 2001, became a breakout hit, selling more than 160,000 copies.
In June, Pamuk and Goknar traveled to Dublin to accept the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, one of the world's richest book prizes, and one of the few that honors the translator as well as the writer.
Goknar was surprised by the success of the novel. He undertook the project because he thought it would be interesting, but not particularly good for his career.
"There were times when I was doing the translation when I thought, 'I have so many other things I should be working on '“ was this the smart thing to do?'" he said.
Despite Pamuk's huge popularity in Turkey, the English translation of his previous novels had hovered around 10,000 copies. "My Name is Red" was an unlikely bestseller: It's a 500-plus-page postmodern murder mystery set in 16th-century Istanbul, told in 59 chapters from numerous points of view, including that of a dog, a tree, a coin and the color red.
Nevertheless, it met with acclaim in the U.S. The novel was reviewed in newspapers all over the country, including The New York Times (which praised not just the novel but Goknar's "fluid grace" in translating it) and The New Yorker (in a piece written by John Updike, who also praised the translation.)
"I remember when I got The New Yorker with John Updike's review in it, and I was shocked when he mentioned my name," Goknar said. "I wasn't really thinking about how well it would do."
It was a pleasant surprise for Goknar, who went into Turkish literature assuming that obscurity came with the territory.
Goknar's parents came to the United States from Turkey in the 1950s to get medical treatment for his sister, who had polio. They stayed, and he grew up in a Detroit suburb. He spoke Turkish at home and visited there every couple of years with his family, but it wasn't until he was in his 20s that he began to think about making Turkish literature his career.
He got an MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon, and as his writing turned more autobiographical, his interest turned toward Turkish literature.
"It was very rich for me," he said. "It was very satisfying, both on a personal and a professional level."
He got a Fulbright scholarship and spent time in Istanbul, where he studied with a professor who also was a friend of Pamuk's. It was this professor who had shown the author the essays that Goknar had written about him.
Once he began the work, Goknar spent many hours in Pamuk's studio working through the issues of translating the book into English.
Pamuk knows English '“ he studied at the Iowa Writer's Workshop '“ so the process was a collaborative one, Goknar said. They would meet in Pamuk's studio, spending hours struggling over things as detailed as whether to use a semicolon or a dash, and other, larger issues, such as whether to use the word God or Allah.
"It made me more comfortable and made the process more rewarding '“ more real," Goknar said. "When you're translating, it's kind of a monk-like existence."
The particular choice of how to refer to God reflected one of the main themes of the book, the tension between East and West. If they used God, would they be stripping the word of its cultural context? If they used Allah, would they create a sense of alienation with English-speaking readers?
Pamuk wanted the book entirely in English, but Goknar felt it was important to use some non-English words. In the end, they compromised by using references to both God and Allah, depending on the context in the book.
"Those were dialogues that would not have emerged had I not met with him," Goknar said.
He came to Duke in the fall of 2001, just as the English version of "My Name is Red" was published. He teaches Turkish language courses and seminars on Ottoman and Turkish history and literature. He shares an office on campus with his wife, Banu Gokariksel, who teaches in Comparative Area Studies.
Goknar helped bring Pamuk to campus in 2002 for a reading, and plans to translate Pamuk's forthcoming novel, "The Museum of Innocence."
Rob Sikorski, executive director of Duke's Center for International Studies, said Goknar has been a great bridge between Duke and the vibrant Turkish intellectual community.
"Erdag not only is a translator, but he really knows the art world of modern Turkey," Sikorski said. "He was not only able to bring Pamuk to campus, but to bring other authors and to connect us to the contemporary Turkish art world."
