His novels that have been translated into dozens of languages include My Name is Red, Snow and The White Castle and deal with the clash between past and present, East and West, secularism and Islamism, often against the colourful backdrop of his native Istanbul.

The Swedish Academy said that that the 54-year-old writer "in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures."

Not one to avoid confrontation, Pamuk went on trial for telling a Swiss newspaper that Turkey was unwilling to deal with two of the most painful episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians during the First World War and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey's overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.

In an ironic twist the announcement today of his win comes at the same time French MPs voted to approve a draft law that would make it a criminal offence to deny that Turkish massacres of Armenians in 1915-17 constituted genocide.

Pamuk's prize marked the first time that a writer from a predominantly Muslim country has been honoured for literature since 1988, when the award went to Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, who died in August.

Pinar Kur, a leading female Turkish novelist said: "For years, everybody has wished someone from Turkey would win the Nobel.

But it is also known, both in Turkey and abroad, that this prize is much more related to politics than to literature, it is given more for political reasons.

It is very unfortunate that this prize announcement was made on the same day as the [Armenian genocide] Bill in France."

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