Love in the Days of Rebellion (Ottoman Quartet #2)
Ahmet AltanBy weaving together tortured love affairs, political intrigue, power struggles, 4 social upheavals, the novel offers a powerful & 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 & proud Mehpare Hanım, his wife & 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, & 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 & upheavals of Ottoman history, showing how—over a hundred years later—the events and wounds of that time still resonate in the tensions & contradictions of today’s Turkey.
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