Ahmet Altan longlist author interview
8 October 2019
Ahmet Altan
Early one morning in 2016, novelist Ahmet Altan woke to find the police at his door. Arrested and imprisoned on Kafkaesque charges by Erdoğan’s repressive regime, Ahmet’s life is now confined to a cell four metres long.
Smuggled from the prison in which Ahmet is serving his life sentence, each page of the book you hold in your hands is a resounding testament to the power of the artist’s imagination.
Translated by Yasemin Çongar
Born in 1950, Ahmet Altan is one of Turkey’s most important writers. In the purge following the failed coup in July 2016, Altan was sent to prison for giving ‘subliminal messages’ in support of the coup. In February 2018, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for attempting to overthrow the government. Fifty-one Nobel laureates have signed an open letter to President Erdoğan calling for Altan’s release. Altan is the author of seven essay collections and ten novels, two of which, Endgame and Like a Sword Wound, are available in English.
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