Ferit Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and academic, and the recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of Turkey's most prominent novelists, having sold over 13 million books in 63 languages, making him the country's best-selling writer.

His notable works include Silent House, The White Castle, The Black Book, The New Life, My Name Is Red, and Snow. Pamuk holds the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professorship in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches writing and comparative literature. In 2018, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Born in Istanbul, Pamuk is the first Turkish Nobel laureate, and he has also received numerous other literary awards. My Name Is Red won the 2002 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, the 2002 Premio Grinzane Cavour, and the 2003 International Dublin Literary Award.

The European Writers' Parliament was established following a joint proposal by Pamuk and José Saramago. Pamuk's exploration of contentious historical and political events in his writings has occasionally put him at risk of censure in Turkey. In 2005, he was sued over a statement regarding the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, aiming to highlight issues of freedom of speech in Turkey. Although the court initially declined to hear the case, Pamuk was ordered in 2011 to pay a fine for having insulted the plaintiffs' honor.