Orhan Pamuk- his initial struggle

Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2006, at the age of 54. He had wanted to be a painter in his school days, but his family talked him into architecture- a profession that would satisfy his artistic impulse, as well as be useful to the society. However, he couldn't go beyond the third year. He dropped out of college, with declared intentions of being a novelist. His family didn't approve of his decision, though his father continued to give him "pocket money" till the age of 32. That was when his first novel was published.

This is what an article says about that phase of his life:

'Several contemporaries were, like Pamuk, interestingly quirky thinkers. "But while they fell by the way side, he pushed on and found out who he really was through his writing. And it was difficult. For families from his class engineering was everything. Of course there were quite a few of us interested in artistic things, but there was a very strong feeling that anyone with skills should put them in service of the country. His family were not happy at all about what he was doing but that wouldn't mean they didn't support him. Your family is your social security over there."

Pamuk says he received "pocket money" from his father until he was 32. "But even my father, who had translated Valéry, said I should stay on and finish that stupid architecture school. Their attitude was that all the artists and intellectuals in the country were doomed because there was not much interest in what they had to offer. And they were all drunks. So I worked very hard to make myself a novelist and finish my first book. I didn't want anyone to say - even though secretly I was saying it to myself - that I left school for nothing and was wasting my life."