Ahmet Altan, one of today’s most important Turkish writers and journalists, was arrested in September 2016 and is serving a life sentence on false charges. An advocate for Kurdish and Armenian minorities and a strong voice of dissent in his country, his arrest and conviction received widespread international criticism (51 Nobel laureates signed an open letter to Turkey’s president calling for Altan’s release). Altan is the author of ten novels—all bestsellers in Turkey—and seven books of essays. In 2009 he received the Freedom and Future of the Media Prize from the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig, and in 2011 he was awarded the International Hrant Dink Award. The international bestseller Endgame was his English-language debut, and was named one of the fifty notable works of fiction of 2017 by The Washington Post. Like a Sword Wound is the winner of the prestigious Yunus Nadi Novel Prize in Turkey.
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Ahmet Altan
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Latest reviews
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Love and politics in the shadow of tyranny … The imprisoned Turkish writer’s historical novel has clear parallels with the present day— The Guardian, Dec 19 2018![]()
Jailed novelist Ahmet Altan is ‘living what he wrote’ in this tale of repression set in Ottoman Turkey— The Observer, Dec 2 2018![]()
Like a Sword Wound by Ahmet Altan is published now in English translated by Yelda Türedi and Brendan Freely. It's the winner of the Yunus Nadi Novel Prize, and the first book in the Ottoman Quartet, a narrative that spans the history of Turkey during the decline of the Ottoman...— BBC Radio 3, Oct 18 2018![]()
To what extent is writing a political act? ‘This question sounds a bit naive in countries like mine . . . . Writing becomes engulfed by politics’— The Times Literary Supplement, Oct 11 2018![]()
This vibrant, psychologically acute novel—the first of a planned quartet by the Turkish author Altan (Endgame), currently in prison on specious charges of aiding the 2016 coup against President Erdogan—depicts a moribund Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 20th century. In...— Publishers Weekly, Oct 10 2018![]()
Sentenced to life imprisonment in Turkey, Ahmet Altan continues work on his ambitious series, the Ottoman Quartet, from Silivri Prison outside Istanbul.— Publishers Weekly, Sep 5 2018![]()
Set during the fall of the Ottoman Empire, this is billed as a "Turkish War and Peace. Author Altan, an advocate for Kurdish and Armenian minorities, was sentenced to life imprisonment in February 2018. Margaret Atwood, Orhan Pamuk and JM Coetzee are among those who signed...— The Bookseller, Jul 18 2018
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