From the acclaimed author of I Will Never See the World Again, this poignant coming-of-age novel finds moments of remarkable humor in a present-day Istanbul rife with economic and political hardships.Fazıl’s comfortable existence studying literature is upended by his family’s sudden financial ruin, followed swiftly by the death of his father. Forced to sell his belongings and move to an old boardinghouse, he discovers a new side of the city, populated by immigrants, poets, sex workers, and busboys, all struggling to get by.    On a tip from a fellow resident, Fazıl finds work to support himself through university, as an extra on a TV show, where he meets two women who will change his life. Sıla, a striking young student, shares his love of Virginia Woolf and uniquely understands his current predicament: once well-off, she too has lost everything, after the government unjustly seized her father’s business....

A resilient Turkish writer's inspiring account of his imprisonment that provides crucial insight into political censorship amidst the global rise of authoritarianism. 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 torment of profound helplessness, just as he did. Like a cursed oracle, I foresaw my future years ago not knowing that it was my own. Confined in a cell four meters long, imprisoned on absurd, Kafkaesque charges, novelist Ahmet Altan is one of many writers persecuted by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's oppressive regime. In this extraordinary memoir, written from his prison cell, Altan reflects upon his sentence, on a life whittled down to a courtyard covered by bars,...

WINNER OF THE 2021 PRIX FEMINA FOR BEST FOREIGN NOVEL The third volume of the internationally acclaimed Ottoman Quartet, written by Ahmet Altan while he was imprisoned by the Turkish regime This masterly constructed, sweeping novel centers on the story of Nizam's tormented love affair with a Russian pianist, Anya, and is told against the backdrop of the Ottoman Empire's tumultuous history in the years leading up to WWI. Underlying the novel's tale of war and love and Altan's absorbing exploration of the inner lives of a vast cast of characters, is a fierce criticism of masculinity and of its degeneration into violence against women, nationalism, and authoritarianism. Once again, Altan confirms to be an elegant, powerful, and courageous writer, who is not afraid to denounce an arrogant and undemocratic government that, today as a century ago, relies on bigotry, censorship, and intimidation to cling to...

From the author of Like a Sword Wound Weaving together tortured love affairs, political intrigue, power struggles, and social upheavals, Love in the Days of Rebellion offers a powerful and vivid tableau of the crisis of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. The second installment 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. The novel opens with the attempted suicide of Hikmet Bey, the son of the sultan's personal physician. The reason for his extreme gesture was to forget the extremely beautiful and proud Mehpare Hanım, his wife and the cause of all his suffering. While Hikmet is recovering in a hospital in Thessaloniki, slowly regaining his strength and will to live, radical changes are afoot in the Ottoman capital. The power of the sultan is eroding, a rebellion...

'I don't remember pulling the trigger; I only heard the gunshot. And then I saw a mouth opening, as if to speak, a face contorted, one hand in the air. . . And then a body falling . . .' A man retires to a sun-baked Turkish town for a quiet life. But he finds a world of suspicion, paranoia and violence. The town has made a murderer of him. The question is, who did he kill? Led by a deeply untrustworthy narrator, Ahmet Altan's international bestseller pulls us into a world of desire, ambition and death. A detective story turned on its head, Endgame is sensual, compelling and laced with a dreamlike logic reminiscent of Paul Auster. Endgame heralds Ahmet Altan as one of the most exciting literary voices to have emerged in years.