Ahmet Altan

The second instalment in the Ottoman Quartet—the masterful saga of Turkish history by Ahmet Altan—follows the vast and vivid cast of characters introduced in the first volume of the series, Like A Sword Wound. By weaving together tortured love affairs, political intrigue, power struggles, and social upheavals, the novel offers a powerful and vivid tableau of the crisis of the...

The destiny I put down in my novel has become mine. I am now under arrest like the hero I created years ago. I await the decision that will determine my future, just as he awaited his. I am unaware of my destiny, which has perhaps already been decided, just as he was unaware of his. I suffer the pathetic...

The third book in the Ottoman Quartet, set in the years leading up to WWI, is steeped in the tumultuous events and the political struggle that shaped 20th-century Turkey, from the war against the Bulgarian army and the coup that resulted in the nation's one-party rule. Against this background, a tormented, obsessive love affair unfolds between Nizam, the son of...