Pamuk's refusal to stay silent on the subject of
Turkey's history could see him in prison.
Photograph: Guardian
The novelist Orhan Pamuk has long been the western media's go-to man when it wants to learn about Turkey, how to be secular in a Muslim country, the clash between east and west, or between modernity and tradition. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if he has an array of pre-prepared articles on the Istanbul of his childhood, and his wistful, melancholic memories of the great Turkish city, just waiting for an editor to publish them.

His novels (My Name is Red, The Black Book, The New Life, Snow) and memoir (Istanbul) have been widely translated, and some critics argue that he is just a book or two away from a Nobel Prize.

All of which might lead you to expect that back home in Turkey he would be feted, his ideas discussed with reverence and his pronouncements on his country's past respected.

But it seems that there are some topics that even great writers should never broach. In February this year Pamuk gave an interview to the Swiss newspaper Tagesanzeiger in which he discussed the "genocide" of Armenians in Turkey in 1915-16 and the killing of Kurds since armed conflict began between Turkey and Kurd separatists in 1984. Pamuk said: "Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in Turkey. Almost no one dares speak but me, and the nationalists hate me for that."

To this day the very idea of an Armenian genocide remains a running sore in Turkish political life, and ever since he made his remarks, Pamuk has been the focus of nationalist ire. And yesterday, the public prosecutor in Istanbul's Sisli district officially charged him with damaging the state and insulting Turkey's national character. His publisher, Tugrul Pasaoglu, says that he is set to go on trial on December 16 and if found guilty could face up to three years in prison.

For its part, the Turkish state denies that genocide occurred. It claims that the death toll has been inflated by Armenian organisations, and that those Armenians who were killed died in a civil war that took place as the Ottoman Empire collapsed during and after the first world war, or of hunger and disease. Turkey's foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, says that to call it genocide is "pure slander".

For a long time it had seemed that the whole incident would be brushed under the carpet of history, but Turkey's accession talks with the EU, and Pamuk's comments, have helped to bring it back into the international spotlight. The country's human rights record has been held up as a reason to prevent EU membership, and its past has been disinterred.

Discussion of the past within Turkey has been made more problematic by the new penal code introduced earlier this year, which includes a national identity clause that freedom of speech and human rights campaigners say could lead to the imprisonment of writers and journalists. In June a conference was planned at Istanbul's Bosphorus University to debate the events of 1915-16, but was cancelled after pressure from the government, nationalist groups and student bodies.

The new penal code also restricts the rights of parties to discuss an ongoing case, but Mr Pasaoglu said that Pamuk is determined to fight his corner, and will wait for the trial to defend himself. "We have to wait for the court. Then he will make his speech in the court," Mr Pasaoglu said.

Whatever else is true, it remains the case that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed as a consequence of Turkey's actions, and most neutral historians would say that, at the very least, these events amounted to "ethnic cleansing". Whatever your standpoint, surely it should be possible for Orhan Pamuk and other writers to discuss the past without risking imprisonment?

But, for some in Turkey, the issue goes beyond the killings of Armenians to the trauma of losing its once great Ottoman Empire. Turkey - a secular, Muslim democracy on the borders of the Arab and European world - has long suffered from a kind of identity crisis. Many feel unloved by their Muslim neighbours because of their government's relations with the US and the west, while also feeling slighted by Europe's reluctant acceptance of their EU credentials. Talk of genocide only serves to inflame national passions.

It can only be hoped that Pamuk's trial, and the EU accession talks, offer the chance for Turkey finally to come to grips with its past.