Erdağ Göknar is a Turkish-American

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

, literary

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

, and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

. He is an Associate Professor of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

and Director of the Duke University Middle East Studies Center. Göknar is best known for his award-winning translation of

Orhan Pamuk Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952; ) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, he has sold over 13 million books in 63 languages, making him ...

's Ottoman historical novel, '' My Name is Red'' (Knopf 2001; Everyman's Library 2010), which marked Pamuk's emergence as an author of

world literature World literature is used to refer to the world's total national literature and the circulation of works into the wider world beyond their country of origin. In the past, it primarily referred to the masterpieces of Western European literature. ...

, contributing to his selection as Nobel laureate in 2006. John Updike commented on the translation in ''The New Yorker'': "Translating from the Turkish, a non-Indo-European language with a grammar that puts the verb at the end of even the longest sentence, isn't a task for everybody; Erdağ Göknar deserves praise for the cool, smooth English in which he has rendered Pamuk's finespun sentences, passionate art appreciations, slyly pedantic debates, eerie urban scenes ... and exhaustive inventories." The best-selling novel was awarded the 2003

International Dublin Literary Award The International Dublin Literary Award (), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. It promotes excellence in world literature and is solely ...

, a 100,000 Euro prize that acknowledges both translator and author and was reissued as part of the Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics in 2010. Göknar's translation of Atiq Rahimi's ''

Earth and Ashes ''Earth and Ashes'' () is a 2004 Afghan film directed and co-written by Atiq Rahimi, based on his book of the same name which was published in 2000. It was Afghanistan's submission to the 77th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign ...

'' (Harcourt) from Dari was shortlisted for the IMPAC Literary Award in 2004 and reissued by Other Press in 2010. In 2008 Göknar translated modernist Turkish author Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's iconic novel of Istanbul ''A Mind at Peace'' (Archipelago, 2008/2011), which was awarded a translation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The translation was presented to President Barack Obama by the Turkish government during a state visit in 2009. Göknar's critical articles have appeared in journals such as ''South Atlantic Quarterly'', ''Novel: A Forum on Fiction'', and the ''Journal of Middle East Women's Studies''. In 2013, Göknar published a work of literary and cultural criticism entitled ''Orhan Pamuk, Secularism and Blasphemy: The Politics of the Turkish Novel'' (Routledge), which argues that productive tension between literary tropes of ''din'' (Turkish Islam) and ''devlet'' (state secularism) informs Pamuk's work and marks its currency as world literature. His collection of poetry, ''Nomadologies'' (Turtle Point Press), appeared in 2017 and is a poetics of Turkish-American diaspora, addressing themes of cultural dislocation. Göknar is the recipient of two

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...

awards.

Translations

*'' My Name is Red'' (''Benim Adım Kırmızı'') by

(Knopf, 2001) *''

'' (''Khakester o Khak'') by

Atiq Rahimi Atiq Rahimi () (born 26 February 1962 in Kabul) is a France, French-Afghanistan, Afghan writer and filmmaker. Life Atiq Rahimi was born in 1962 in Kabul to a senior public servant and attended high school in Lycée Esteqlal. Following the Soviet ...

(Harcourt, 2004) *''A Mind at Peace'' (''Huzur'') by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (Archipelago Books, 2008)

Cultural Criticism

''Orhan Pamuk, Secularism, and Blasphemy: The Politics of the Turkish Novel''
(Routledge, 2013)

Edited Volumes

''Mediterranean Passages: Readings from Dido to Derrida''
(Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2008)

Poetry

''Nomadologies: Poems''
(Turtle Point Press, 2017)

External links

Articles available on academia.eduOrhan Pamuk, Secularism and BlasphemyUpdike on "My Name is Red"Pamuk on the Nobel Prize site"My Name is Red" wins IMPACSF Chronicle Review of Pamuk's Other Colors
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goknar, Erdag M. Duke University faculty Living people Turkish–English translators American academics of Turkish descent Year of birth missing (living people)