For Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, winning the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature completes a turnaround from his being tried on charges of "insulting Turkishness." The charges against Pamuk, Turkey's most internationally renowned novelist, were eventually dropped.

That episode was far from his mind Thursday, when the author said he felt his culture, his hometown of Istanbul, and his art had been recognized. "This is not a day for politics for me," Pamuk said.

But some of the reaction among Turks today has mixed pride in the recognition of a Turkish writer with some lingering resentment of Pamuk's remarks about Turkey's Armenian genocide.

Robert Siegel talks to Pamuk.

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