"A deeply compelling and immersive narrative about love, desire, loneliness and landscape."-Elif Shafak (on book 1 of the series) "Altan uses a Tolstoyan combination of the epic and the intimate to explore questions of national identity and historical narrative."-The Observer "Altan's descriptions of a stifling atmosphere of authoritarian repression in Istanbul in the early 1900s conjure up constant comparisons with today's Turkey."-The TLS 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 Hikmet Bey, and Russian pianist Anya. This tapestry of love and war allows Altan to analyse the structure of male power and its degeneration into violence against women, uncompromising nationalism, and pervasive censorship. Atan confirms himself as a caustic, courageous writer, never afraid to denounce an arrogant and undemocratic power, allowing the reader to read between the lines the situation of contemporary Turkey.

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 Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. The second instalment opens with the attempted suicide of Hikmet Bey, the son of the sultan's personal physician. The reason for his extreme gesture is, to forget the extremely beautiful and proud Mehpare Hanim, his wife and the cause of all his suffering. While Hikmet recovers 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 is brewing, and violence erupts on the streets of Istanbul. It is the eve of one of the key events that will lead to the collapse of the Empire: the countercoup of 1909. With striking clarity and imaginative power, Altan evokes the traumas and upheavals of Ottoman history, showing how-over a hundred years later-the events and wounds of that time still resonate in the tensions and contradictions of today's Turkey.