ah hell, welcome to sophie collision, or if me, sophie shall not say in times of trouble way, turn to art for comfort or return to literature for wisdom and my guest, today's the world's literature, demi urge, master storyteller and noble prize winner, or hunt from oak or hunt by milk novelist recipient only a 2006 noble prize in literature. it's really great to have you with us once again . 12 years later. great pleasure hype. i am also very happy to address my direction reader. so i just got my copy, odd, basically 2 days ago, and i'm like, deep into this book. most of the russian readers are gonna get it this week. so it's like a huge thing. let's dive right into this. okay. your latest novel that came out in

russia knights of plague, it is about a plague outbreak on a fictional, ottoman island. and, you know, using sang and interviews that you pondered on this novel for 40 years new to for years to write it. no pandemic was inside back then, and yet you chose this topic for your book and you sort of hick, the bull's eye with it. isn't a coincidence or did you see clinical incidence? but i am in my mind, is busy with the subject of play for the last 40 years in my earlier books in silent house, there is a historian who's researching it historical ottoman, played on in my right castle. they shorter book and other historical novel that are the scenes of plague in a stumble. i've been thinking about a plague for 40 years because it, at the beginning i thought this is such an opportunity to talk about this. then i changed my mind. it was of both one another. plenty is what was of

a portal to think about to write about to explore them. that western perception of my part of the world already on the list that they use, the visitors to stumble in 165717th century would write about the turks are all to missouri, moslems as a fatalist man. people who don't care about. i would only believe in god and since our faith is written over our heads, if they don't do anything, they do not run away from plague. but later in the last 10 years, i taught the subject all imposition of currently not people say no, i don't want to do it. i don't want to do it. i don't want to go in and, you know, and that political conclusions, political consequences or resistance to guarantee that this is the subject of mike's off playing that is just published in russia. i choose that subject. and it's of course, coincidence. i was writing this novel for the last 5 years. suddenly in the 4th

year there was this immense and other panoramic. there are differences though, that it would plague kills one in tree, one in tree dimes. in 1655 long milan stumbled flakes one and 3 died while as be all no quarter, no wires kills one in a 100 and even less it now. so you're saying it was a kind of a what a coincidence. you know what they say, the smart people, that even the things we've seen, we haven't plan with planned it somewhere. somewhere in our past, in our, in our unconscious app. so you wrote it for 4 years now. he had time to observe it in full swing and i'm sure you have your observation. some people say, you know, people became kinder and when became more empathic, i'm there say, oh, i got no we, we didn't learn anything like this, condemning didn't changes a bit. it changed me a great. what about you?

do you think i can teach the same thing or humanity is hopeless? well, of course we are changed when we face an earthquake, a war, or to pandemic him. we definitely che, i don't think he's not. human beings have 11 strong character i thing of the, our characters continuously change. i am a writer. i also teach writing and the 1st thing i teach the students when they're writing fiction, a your character at the beginning of the novel. it has and character a and at the end of the novel, it she should or she has have a character b and the event writing and all is organizing the events or the story in such a way that the character changes. the girl grows up, the boy was the war and soul sees how horrible life is. and when you're faced with

plague, our lesser with wires, you are scare you low, shouldn't saudi diety, you learn criticized the government. but you also need the government's help, so forth and so on. there's so much of learning education when faced with an earthquake, i have also leave earth. you also see that fragility of human life. d. like in saying that we can deny it any more. you also learned about solidarity making m m, making groups, respecting others, rights for yours are to be very a go stickle. you just save on on your own life. there are many, many reactions. i can say that we can be human beings have always the same responses. we also change but single human beings, when faced with a catastrophe, like corner wires or even deeper play,

of course we are to chain. we learn 1st of all, the learn how beautiful life is, how beautiful it is to realize that that's why i wanted to write the novel about plague. because death teaches us the beauties of life. i am not always a negative writer. i also care about like tosto, like mobil picking up beautiful details about life and making and making my novel, beautiful, believable, con wincy. absolutely. if i may add from my humble opinion, your nose in many senses are also a lot celebrating life. and so if we look at the larger scale of things, not how it changed us individually because of course it changed me, changed you because this, you know, 32 years is a big period of time for one person's life. but do you think are in a virus is gonna really change the course of things on a larger scale because you have so many like powers of pass plagues in your book.

but if you will look at it now, 100 years later, we haven't really changed. i mean, humans are fighting the worst that we're fighting before planning for a piss some brad with planning for oil resources. lemme la d releasing koran. there's been a change things in the large scale. where look if the s corps and i've been a change in human character a bit when you face it. and unfortunately, what i seen from other books, other studies i read so much or to write this novel that things change to verse when there is such an image, i'm talking about epidemic, not earth. why? because human beings in history also showed us in the 1st reactions are always the same. the government denies it than that i rumors. and then people do the lies that they don't want to die. they want to run away. or they want to get organized almost for when new governments and evac my novel is about making of

a new state. it is a sort of a reaction for plague mike, the plague that i described in my novel is the plague of 1897. that started in some say in hong kong and spread to all asia. most interesting thing. some 20000000 kill people were killed in asia, but very few people in west that was one of the reasons that attract could me to this subject. why were asians are dying like it's like birds and why nothing happened in best? of course, the answer is very simple because they were respecting a bit to that restrictions of kind of tina and the western governments were more determined to impose until in the end they organize human reaction to them. it be they mix with that. it's called era a red or its yellow fever, whether it,

whether it's play or corner know why this is always the same, but each concrete situations a different part in this or that way. it's really interesting because this correlation of state and people and how they interact during pandemic is also the most interesting thing to encourage virus. we've seen that, you know, many governments where just at last not because they're bad governments, they just didn't know how to react. you know, it's the 1st time they so you kind of thing i see yes. and then people will have to pull themselves to sort of stand for themselves and it's the 3rd year now and there's this fatigue and it's still not ending. what do you think as a big visionary, that person needs not a state, but a person needs in himself to pull through this pandemic to, to get to the end. ok, then i can give you advice if your government is bad and is not taking. my name is

not imposing quite a dime strongly. if your government cares and has populace thick policies saw that business is not shot. then save your own life. be an egg voice, but if you're organized and the government is taking the necessary, require i'm time restrictions then follow them. that is not one single solution. but one thing i have learned from reading and thinking for many years or 2 years about this subject is humanity always wants the impossible they 1st day say to the government, please father you government b. they say simultaneously on please don't touch my my private life. don't touch my business, don't touch my freedom. and this is an impossible contradiction. and all the media, all the newspapers are him, make

a generating interest because of this contradiction that's at the moment he's not doing enough. government is closing business where you can do it simultaneously. you asked to close the business. you have to list quick freedoms. but once you begin to restrict freedoms, then a sort of unaltered tarion, undemocratic totalitarian government begins to grow up. so these are my subjects in a way in might so plate, mr. pam. okay, we're going to take a short break right now. we're back. we'll continue talking to best selling writer nobel prize winner or hunt bye milk. you know, want to miss to stay with us. what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy even foundation,

let it be an arms race is often very dramatic development only personally and getting to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successfully, very critical of time to sit down and talk this is so smart. city is a city that's using technology to make people's life easier to happier, collecting a lot of data to try to improve the way things are in theory, these big organizations that are on the album aiding and pulling all that data together. they're not looking at you as an individual, necessarily lose data being collected. so much data that there's a real possibility of privacy violation. i'm not something most of us wouldn't want to wells transparent, but we must live with permanent surveillance. ah

and we're back with normal prize winner or hunt. i'm old. mr. pamela, we know during any plate because plate pretty much is like a war like corn, a virus is like invisible 3rd world war, right? ah. all aspects of human nature, common surface, bad and good in your observations, and we can parallel your book as well. what are the aspects of a human nature that this pandemic has brought on surface? of course, again, that when we are face the dead disaster, if pyre, do you want to say go or your own life, or do you want to say the life of your neighbors that am an earthquake?

do you want to save yourself or your family? and i and it play comes and you have it. you have to run away from your family, but people don't do it. it is. that is why i, for 40 years, i wanted to write this novel because it shows the tragic situation of humanity between helping others and say, enjoying a good life or saving your life. sometimes a voice survive. sometimes when people is survive. so there is not much meaning in this kind of about gender generalization in this kind of situation. of course, i believe in saudi that the, in understanding the job, my ethical way them aim is to teach my readers 1st. enjoy the novel enjoyed how about the suffering of the people in a way in

a historical novel enjoyed the details of imposition of cantina during the last years of ottoman empire. when in fact, russian saw co auto, an empire, the sick people of a sick person of europe. this is what they teach us, even in turkish, i school books because therapy should be public high school books. look down upon the ottoman empire and called, took the russian saying that all the ones were to seek people to wear smoke by color, by quality please. this is the great. and this novel is indiana. also a political novel about the disintegration of ottoman empire. the today, turks are very proud to have the ultimate empire. i just want us to, to be mind them that look the empire, if you were ronald disintegrated in such a sad way. it's a story of decline and all 2 months over rule old bo county middle east,

but we today called grady or whatever middle east that they lost. you know, how did it happen? how did they these guys who were running, damn, what did they think of all this? these are also the side subjects, the other subjects, the rise of nationalism at the end of an empire when the empire is collapsing, every want to say, well actually i'm not, i'm, i'm, i am this, i am started me and i am bo gary and i am greek, i am a syrian, i am at all times lost all this hub in a way my, my sentiments are close to or 2 months here. you know, i live in the stumble, my family lived in the summer. how did it feed? and i'm again putting on ottoman system on a pedestal. i just wanted to see clearly and i am critical of auto moneys in view are getting from the government from air go on. i believe turkey should be secular

and look for its future in europe. it rings the bell and it hits home when you say about the ottoman empire because a lot of people. busy in the past, so the, it territory is still the same about the, the, the collapse of the soviet union. i mean, they wanted to collapse, they wanted to does integrate and now that it's gone and there is a sense of, oh, we lost somebody. yeah. maybe it wasn't that bad after all, and you brought out by saying that, you know, i know little is about enjoying but enjoying other people's pain. but what i found remarkable and also a lot of parallels with what's going on. reading your novel, is it how pain and suffering it exists with regular life? it's crazy, right? i mean, and there's a plague. it's raging. the sitting people are dying was possibly la, for a life just goes on and nothing is happening. and it same here. jane corner virus,

i mean people are dying. i have seen before noticing that yes, that, that your, your neighbor can be dying will be suffering. and but you think if i want to be a good person, why don't i only save my family? i like my children and my wife so much that i don't care or. and one thing if we can bear the previous funding mix, whether it's play quota or a plague, that at all times, even before the beginning of 20th century humanity was not educated, is that is, it is now, not only it, let's say, in turkey at that time, only 5 percent on the wanting 20 knew how to read and write and would never understand what the micro while today people understand also people look at the map and sir, and don't understand used to log on. was that anything while you're educated,

we see on every night a t v. what's happening in the world? and that is relatively speaking. that's why we are scared in a more exaggerated way. why do you think people so many times choose to stay ignorant with here? what we don't understand and certainly is one of the most difficult tests for human human psychic. yet in knights of plague, we see people who are ignorant of this disease and they suffer of that. but on the other hand, they oppose knowledge in every possible way. and prefer to stay ignorant and that's a paradox because i see so much of that today as well. yes, that's today sick this some clothes, some called it, for example, trump and abuse dismissal for mation. that these are the problems of twitter, facebook, and all these popular media that there is a lot of fake information. if you ask me a for me, van eb,

my ethical question is, i have to ask this question. if i think that i know it, right, i should ask this question at both as a novelist and as a person, why do they choose to believe in lines? what makes them, what forces them to believe in lie? i wow, there's so many reasons you know. i also teach at columbia university new york say a conservative family sense. he's fun to columbia. and all the professors are liberals leftist and they teach their school and then his son comes back and he hates you. and wants to situation to change and things. this is because of democrats all these idiots. so in the end, if this guy is not been educated, wants to be what we call false information, want balls to walk for trump. the my professor friends at columbia all hates trump

. ok, but then yes, i also don't like trump, but why do people walk for here? this never answered, half of the country. what do you think? the fact that people are much more informed now rather than 100 years ago during that plague make us stronger or does it make us more vulnerable? it makes us stronger, not, not less vulnerable in physically, but it makes us want little spiritually because we see people die. we see photographs of huge cemetery burning bodies in india tracks are passing in from italy. when we see these things, we are scared. this is too much information perhaps, or we are happy. there's information. and then i think this is the main important sentiment that i write about. if you were to create

a museum of this pandemic, what would it look like? what, what would the inside? i am a strange guy in a way. i'm keeping the old used mask. i'm sure this will pass, and i was told that people, hey, i deserve that. you know, this happen. don't forget all the epidemic. deadly epidemics in human history, in the end, as their way dis, will also pass. they will, i'm sure about that. but, but it stays, it stayed longer than we expected. the stumble play both 6 is 1655 took 2 years, 2 summers. the longer the same, so it, they always takes longer than we reach. god, please stop it. it, it stops but more longer after more time, more people die than we expect. but in the end it passes away,

then it vanishes. no one wants to remember, except those who kept their masks and talking about museums in your museum of innocence, you have to start that. you know, we're really only capable of feeling how happy we were pondering about the past. but we were never happy in the moment. 2 questions here and answer them as you wish . why is that? so does it mean that we're only capable to be happy in our memories and are in the present life? and do you think once this pandemic passes, we can look back and, you know, maybe thing that actually was a happy time, somewhat scary. i don't give you that. i don't see humanity will go back to me and said that it was a beautiful time. maybe that was a beautiful time for people who are indoors and who said, wow, i always wanted to read my book, this book that book now i am with home and being paid by the government and doing

nothing and reading books. that's great. maybe there are people like that, but you're saying about it, not that humanities, capacity not to live in this moment. in fact, you are echoing what n kid are then danish philosopher once said to him, unhappy person was the person who either lived in the past or in the future cannot enjoy present. we're talking up making generalizations about humanity. i went and explore this subject a lot in nights of play. some of my characters cannot, can they dream? they think they want to explain. some of them enjoy moments of b, even in the times of horrible, deadly pandemic. we cannot generalize. but he is who if you ask me,

i am also a not very happy person. i either in the past or right historical model or think about the future. but on the other hand, what saves me from intense unhappiness is i have the capacity to write share, my fantasies, put them readers, put them in a format off of the novel and explain this novel, especially this one, the writing, this whole thing im immersing by myself spiritually in which my characters departure or their salt of voter or the doctor's hoover, touching the dead people who are dying, that the mouse who we're burying or the or the orthodox priests who were busy in one our streets. i wrote all about that. and for me,

identifying my characters and writing about and thinking about that gave me a sort of capacity. i ran away from my fears because i wrote about what to wrap up with sas out of universality. because you speak a lot about that. you say that, you know, you driven when you write in a hope to, to bring out the humanities, you know, for salad. what is a universal experience to you? because it is that for look, i wrote an article is changed in my mind, which is about 4 people and shanty pounds, poor people in a stumble, development all shanty houses, if people immigrating from poor places of anatolia or turkey, to stumble. so it's about a poor street seller selling things, but in order to be able to write, in order to grab the what i call what you call universal side to it. i went to 5

a lot, so rio de janeiro in brazil. and i also went to harvey that shanty town of bomb bay. and i looked, and i talked before writing or as i wrote the novel, my story should address these people because they have common themes. and they also different in their own way. turkish problems are more comfortable or more upper class or in india you see that they develop from the poor house to a business. in brazil it's crime and disorder that they are older. and similar, if you care about the universal out salad, you do this kind of comparing in your mind and then right that your novel after that i wrote that likes of plague with that spirit. thinking that we all fear in a different way. but there is something to come on to all of us as your time. look,

thank you so much for this wonderful talk. i enjoy a great a book. thank you. stay safe. thank you. ah, with is your media a reflection of reality in the world transformed? what will make you feel safer?

isolation, whole community. are you going the right way or are you being led to somewhere? which direction? what is true? what is great? in the world corrupted, you need to descend a join us in the depths or remain in the shallows. this is all smart city. is a city that's using technology to make people's life easier to happier, collecting a lot of data to try to improve the way things are in theory, these big organizations that are amalgamating and pulling all that data together. they're not looking at you as an individual necessarily the boost data being collected, so much data that there's

a real possibility of privacy violation. i'm not something most of us wouldn't want to wells transparent, but we must live with permanent surveillance. a headline stories this our western media abandon the principle of believing paul takes. i'd sell the sports with war mongering commentary to the for as the beijing winter olympics kick off. also ahead you just come out and say this expect those good. the believe it without you showing a shred of evidence that it's actually through the u. s. state department spokesperson is grill by journalists for failing to provide evidence for a sensational s. u. s. claim. russia is preparing up the old supply tech as a pretext to invade ukraine.