“A deeply compelling and immersive narrative about love, desire, loneliness and landscape.”—Elif Shafak

Altan’s Ottoman Quartet spans the fifty years between the final decades of the 19th century and the post-WWI rise of Atatürk as both unchallenged leader and visionary reformer of the new Turkey. The four books tell the stories of an unforgettable cast of characters, among them: an Ottoman army officer, the Sultan’s personal doctor, a scion of the royal house whose Western education brings him into conflict with his family’s legacy, and a beguiling Turkish aristocrat who, while fond of her emancipated life in Paris, finds herself drawn to a conservative Muslim spiritual leader. Intrigue, betrayal, love, war, progress, and tradition provide a colourful backdrop against which their lives play out. All the while, the society to which they belong is transforming, and the Sublime Empire disintegrates. Here is a Turkish saga reminiscent of War and Peace, that traces not only the social currents of the time but also the erotic and emotional lives of its characters.

Praise for Ahmet Altan's Endgame

“Endgame is a rare beast: a mystery adventure in the age of internet, of such intimately written humanity that it transcends genre, time and place. If Steinbeck had written The Godfather it might have read like this.”—DBC Pierre, author of Vernon God Little

“An impassioned, captivating dance, a waltz between death and desire that does not release you for even a single moment.”—Philippe Sands, author of East West Street

“Extraordinary, delicious, wise.”—Linn Ullmann, author of The Cold Song

“Endgame is deeply political…It is all very serious but also great fun.”—The Guardian

“Altan pushes the tropes of detective fiction into existentialist territory.”—The New Yorker, Briefly Noted

Ahmet Altan
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.

• Dec 19 2018
  Like a Sword Wound by Ahmet Altan review – an Ottoman epic
  — The Guardian
• Dec 2 2018
  Like a Sword Wound review – vibrant and engrossing
  — The Observer
• Oct 18 2018
  Free thinking
  — BBC Radio 3
• Oct 11 2018
  Twenty Questions with Ahmet Altan
  — The Times Literary Supplement
• Oct 10 2018
  Like a Sword Wound (Starred review)
  — Publishers Weekly
• Sep 5 2018
  From Prison, Ahmet Altan Confronts Turkey's Dark History
  — Publishers Weekly