Ahmet Altan

This one is 3.5 stars in my opinion but I am giving it greater mark than lower.

First to make one thing clear - this is not your standard thriller. This is more of a drama with criminal elements. Main character - writer seeking peace and comfort in secluded village in order to finish his new novel with hopes of becoming popular again - ends up in a very strange village controlled by feuding families. Out of pure curiosity he decides to stay in the village, move that will mark him forever.

Things escalate quickly in the swirl of violence and all-out madness as the main character gets pushed more and more to the dark side of human behavior (in my opinion there is not a normal person in the entire village).

Now you may ask why 3.5 stars? Simple. Certain romantic parts of the novel are extremely slow and get "old" pretty fast. Main character gets in affairs with lots of women but these women have a lot ... and I mean a lot ... mental baggage. Chapters dedicated to Internet chats or SMS messages between lovers are full of talk that is told and re-told over and over again. After a while these parts of the story start to look like page fillers and not integral story parts. At some points these chapters can bring the tempo of the story to zero.

Recommended to thriller and crime fans but be aware of rather tiresome romantic-conversation parts of the book.… (more)

Ahmet Altan is a novelist and sometimes journalist who made remarks on tv deemed to be "subliminal messages" on the eve of a failed coup in Turkey in 2016. He was sentenced to life in prison with no evidence ever produced. While incarcerated he wrote essays which were smuggled out of the prison by his lawyer. Two were published in newspapers abroad. The essays were published as this memoir while he was still incarcerated. In April 2021 he was released by the Supreme Court of Appeals. The book has not been published in Turkey.

The essays are beautifully written and reflect not only on his situation but on the nature of God, literature, and the art of writing. There are many literary references, although most are paraphrased as the author did not have access to the books and was relying on memory. There is nothing gruesome here, he was never tortured; nor is it a polemic. I highly recommend this book.… (more)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Volume 1 of the Ottoman Quartet

A powerful, beautifully written saga set during the fall of one of history’s greatest empires.

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 in the quartet tell the gripping 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 colorful backdrop against which the lives of these characters play out. All the while, the society that spawned them is transforming and the Sublime Empire disintegrating.

Here is a Turkish saga reminiscent of War and Peace, written in lively, contemporary prose that traces not only the social currents of the time but also the erotic and emotional lives of its characters. The female characters in Altan’s gripping saga will upend prejudices about Turkey, the Middle East, and Muslim nations.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: This early-20th Century-set Turkish soap opera is just about as much fun as there is to have reading. There are women with agency, there are men with Yearnings, there are Grand Historical Changes! It is just as juicy as you could wish, it is volume one of four...written by a novelist imprisoned for his liberal politics, therefore without any serious distractions...and it will appeal to any historical-fiction lover as well as those whose taste for magical realism (ghosts! Plenty o' ghosts!) is on the restrained side.

I'm suggesting reading it pretty strongly, right? Mostly because I think you'll enjoy that it's a great value at $2.99 on Kindle the absolute most.… (more)