Ahmet Altan’s latest novel, ‘O Yıl’ (That Year), was one of the literary surprises of 2025. Altan first embarked on this river novel series in 1997 with Like a Sword Wound, continued it in 2001 with Love in the Days of Rebellion, and, after a long hiatus, added It Is Easy to Die, Harder to Love in 2015. The action-packed and open-ended finale of that last book suggested that the narrative would continue. Indeed, in 2017, while in prison, Altan signed an agreement with a foreign publisher referring to the series as the “Ottoman Quartet.” Yet, due both to the exhausting toll of four and a half years of imprisonment and the lack of a publisher in Turkey willing to print his memoirs from that period, the arrival of a fourth book seemed unlikely. Still, after his release, the author published two more novels, demonstrating both his continued productivity and that publishers in Turkey—at least for fiction—still existed. Even so, many readers had likely resigned themselves to never learning the fate of Nizam, Anya, Ragıp Bey, Dilara Hanım, Hikmet Bey, Sheikh Efendi, and the others.
Toward the end of It Is Easy to Die, Harder to Love, Ragıp’s budding relationship with an Armenian nurse (Efronya), along with several scattered hints, suggested that—should another book ever appear—the Armenian tragedy would be a central theme. And indeed, if one of the two major historical events that define That Year is the Battle of Gallipoli, the other is the Armenian deportations. Yet the author’s reluctance to name the year explicitly—as if invoking something ominous—and his preference for an indirect expression indicate that, for him, the primary event is the tragedy of the Ottoman Armenians. Perhaps, out of respect for the memory of that trauma, Altan did not choose a poetic and romantic title like those of his previous books, but instead opted for a more factual one, in line with Adorno’s dictum: “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”
Since the first novel, which depicted the final years of Sultan Abdülhamid II’s reign, the Committee of Union and Progress has seized power, the March 31 Incident has erupted, defeats have been suffered in the Balkan Wars, and World War I has begun. The Young Turks, who came to power with cries of liberty against despotism, established a regime of control even harsher than Abdülhamid’s. Among the characters, Hikmet Bey experiences and expresses the deepest disillusionment with this drift. Though the son of Reşit Pasha—Abdülhamid’s physician—Hikmet Bey had wholeheartedly supported the Committee of Union and Progress at its founding. In later years, however, he became hostile toward Talat, Enver, and Cemal Pasha. In That Year, we listen at length to his disappointment and anger at their intoxication with power. The final victims of that intoxication are the Armenians.
Although there is no deportation order issued against her personally, Efronya cannot bring herself to abandon her Armenian neighbors, and so she sets off with them on a journey into the unknown. It is a single sentence—“Then I will come too”—spoken almost involuntarily to the civilian police that initiates this ordeal. The words, uttered as if beyond her own will and detached from the gravity of the situation, recall an anecdote Altan shares in I Will Never See the World Again. While being taken to prison, he tells a police officer offering him a cigarette, “I only smoke when I’m nervous.” These words, which seemed to emerge from nowhere, became transformative for him:
“That one sentence suddenly changed everything. Like a samurai sword slicing through a silk scarf tossed into the air, it split reality in two. On one side of this reality was a trapped body made of flesh, bone, blood, muscle, and nerves. On the other side was a mind that did not care what would happen to that body, that mocked whatever might befall it, that looked down upon what was happening and what would happen, that believed itself untouchable—and was therefore untouchable.” (p. 11)
Elsewhere in the novel, there appear to be parallels between Efronya’s experiences and Altan’s prison years.
Whether or not it is directly connected to the author’s imprisonment, That Year displays a stylistic difference that clearly distinguishes it from the previous three books. Compared to the others, this final novel is far more dialogue-driven, while descriptions are more sparse. The richness of detail found in Altan’s earlier depictions—for example, of Istanbul’s skyline or Abdülhamid’s palace—is not present here with the same intensity. Likewise, there is less focus on analyzing the inner worlds of the characters. Instead, the narrative leans heavily on dialogue, at times even approaching long monologues. Whereas the earlier books were intricately woven—sometimes to the point of exhausting the reader—That Year feels more swiftly constructed, almost as if written in haste. Still, the depictions of military maneuvers at Conkbayırı or the temporary camps set up by Armenians along the deportation routes carry echoes of the earlier works.
Despite this stylistic shift, all four books share a common thematic concern beyond their historical settings and characters: contradictions—referred to frequently in the novel by the old Turkish term tenakuz. While saying that a novel is built on contradictions may sound obvious, in Altan’s works this theme is emphasized repeatedly. Through his godlike narrative position and through Osman, who in a sense represents him within the novel, we observe characters struggling within dilemmas and paradoxes, sometimes with pity, sometimes with admiration. One of the most striking contradictions in That Year is that the success at the Gallipoli front where Ragıp Bey fights at the risk of his life, gives a lifeline to the Committee of Union and Progress, thereby enabling the mobilization against the Armenians. Unwittingly, Ragıp carries wood to the fire that will consume Efronya.
Another central contradiction is Dilara Hanım’s search for Efronya. Ragıp Bey’s former lover, Dilara Hanım, uses her diplomatic connections in Istanbul to search for Efronya as if looking for a needle in a haystack. She believes that if Efronya dies, Ragıp’s love and longing for her will never fade, and thus she prays not to see Efronya’s lifeless body in the photographs arriving from the East. Yet she also knows that if Ragıp and Efronya are reunited, her own relationship with Ragıp will never return. Even when she decided to end her relationship with Ragıp in the previous book, she struggled with a similar paradox. She believed that if she sacrificed her cherished freedom for a permanent union with him, she would lose her love for him—and thus chose separation. She gave up the man she loved in order to preserve her love.
The driving force of this approximately 1,800-page narrative is the characters’ confrontation with such irresolvable contradictions, their weaknesses and virtues revealed through this struggle, their human condition. Historical events serve merely as the stage upon which this relentless battle unfolds.
Ragıp, Efronya, Dilara… Altan’s river novel presents an intricate web of relationships. Dilara Hanım’s daughter, Dilsever, is married to Hikmet Bey, a man as old as her father. Hikmet Bey’s former wife, Melike Hanım—over whom he once attempted suicide—had previously married and divorced Sheikh Efendi, a religious leader. Ragıp Bey, for his part, had a brief marriage with Sheikh Efendi’s daughter from another wife, but ended it when he fell in love with Dilara Hanım. As if this were not enough, a platonic relationship begins to blossom between Hikmet Bey’s mother, the femme fatale Mihrişah Sultan, and Sheikh Efendi. In such a long novel series, it is perhaps natural for relationships to become increasingly complex and intertwined, yet some coincidences—especially in matters of love—lend the narrative a slightly telenovela-like quality.
Altan’s Ottoman Quartet also sheds light on his political stance regarding contemporary Turkey. In the series, Altan is not naïve about Islamists, their fanaticism, or their exploitation of religion. Yet it is clear that, for him, the primary issue—the fundamental ailment—is the Unionist, Jacobin mindset. We know from his non-fiction writing, particularly his columns in Taraf, about his deep hostility toward those he sees as its extensions: Kemalists, Ergenekon circles, and military tutelage. In this regard, Sheikh Efendi is a meaningful character. On the one hand, he is devoted to the spiritual realm, living in seclusion in his lodge in Istanbul; on the other, through his disciples, his influence extends across the empire, and he closely follows worldly developments. It is clear that, in the author’s eyes, this charismatic figure holds a privileged position. Even those who initially dislike or distrust him eventually fall under his mysterious charm, seek guidance from him, and find peace in him. One wonders whether this exalted figure in the novel’s world is inspired by a real-life “spiritual” leader.
The final pages of That Year seem to herald a fifth book. Who knows—perhaps it will appear on the shelves before the 120th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
*Born in Istanbul in 1975, he studied Business Administration at Boğaziçi University and moved to the United States in 1997 for graduate studies in economics; he currently works in the private sector, serves on the editorial board of Rethinking Marxism, and has been contributing to Birikim since 2000.
This article was first published at Birikim Magazine.
[1] In an interview conducted by Nazan Özcan for Agos, Altan states that he did not choose the title “1915” because there are already many historical works bearing that name; however, the ominous tone of the indirect title he selected appears to be intentional. See: https://www.agos.com.tr/tr/haber/canakkale-zaferi-olmasa-belki-de-ermeni-soykirimi-olmayacakti-38903
[2] Since Altan’s work was published in English (and other languages) in 2018 while he was in prison, but could not be published in Turkish, I have used the English title. In Turkish, the title has been translated in two different ways: Dünyayı Bir Daha Göremeyeceğim (“I Will Not See the World Again”) or Dünyayı Bir Daha Asla Görmeyeceğim (“I Will Never See the World Again”). Its subtitle is Hapsedilmiş Bir Yazarın Hatıratı (“Memoir of an Imprisoned Writer”).
[3] Osman is a figure who, by speaking with the souls of the characters in the novel, allows them to confront their past and to express things they could not—or would not be able to—say while alive. Whether this is a literary trick or a genuine artistic achievement… I must admit, I cannot quite decide.
[4] The title of the first part of the two-part Agos interview mentioned above is: “Had there been no Gallipoli victory, there might not have been an Armenian genocide.”
