{"id":2155,"date":"2026-07-20T12:01:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T19:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/?p=2155"},"modified":"2026-07-28T06:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:32:08","slug":"yeni-hayat-by-orhan-pamuk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/yeni-hayat-by-orhan-pamuk\/","title":{"rendered":"Yeni Hayat by Orhan Pamuk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Orhan Pamuk can be criticized for many reasons, but the most damning reason is \u201chis knowledge and command of Turkish language is dismal\u201d \u2014 I completely agree with this claim, of which there are many evidences; you can easily find them by browsing through critics of his work in Turkish literary circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Interestingly the very first book of Pamuk I read was \u201cThe New Life\u201d (Yeni Hayat) published in 1994, but I read it in English in 1997. I was waiting for the arrival of my son, during the month of May. Perhaps these were very special times for me and I was quietly emotional; I was deeply moved by the book, and believed then it would eventually rank among the top ten Turkish novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But remember, I read it in English. The translator was a Turkish woman who is an English teacher in the midwest, named G\u00fcneli G\u00fcn. I didn\u2019t know her at the time, but discovered more about her later, and I read one of her novels \u201cOn the Road Baghdad\u201d a few years later. I think this book was translated to Turkish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-medium\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"398\" height=\"512\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TheNewLife.jpg?resize=398%2C512&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2160\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TheNewLife.jpg?resize=398%2C512&amp;ssl=1 398w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TheNewLife.jpg?resize=768%2C989&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TheNewLife.jpg?w=931&amp;ssl=1 931w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 398px) 100vw, 398px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here is the short thesis of this post: I now realize that G\u00fcneli G\u00fcn did not just translate Orhan Pamuk\u2019s book, she rewrote it in English! Yes I believe that because \u201cYeni Hayat\u201d in Turkish is written terribly, and clearly shows Pamuk\u2019s inability to form coherent or even correct Turkish sentences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Therefore, Yeni Hayat does not definitely belong to the top Turkish novels. It was a strange experiment: an excellent English novel, overwritten on a weak Turkish draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I will probably write more about this later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Orhan Pamuk can be criticized for many reasons, but the most damning reason is \u201chis knowledge and command of Turkish<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,12,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humans","category-logic","category-time"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2155"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2164,"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions\/2164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cetinkayakoc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}