Constantinople, early 20th centurye century. In a context of political tensions and hostilities between several clans, in this capital of a “decaying empire”, a life can be decided on a whim or on a roll of the dice.
At 16, Ziya avenges with accomplices the assassination of his older brother by a rival clan when he kills, in the middle of the court, the little Albanian boss who was to undergo his trial there. Arrested and condemned for this crime, although he thought he was imprisoned for a long time, he was offered the opportunity after a year to escape to Cairo. Ziya will spend a few peaceful years in exile there under the protection of powerful shadowy figures, while waiting to be able to be of use to them.
He will lose himself in compulsive gambling, money, power, women. Violence hangs deep in the heart of this young man without culture, with an embryonic inner life, the sad hero of Ahmet Altan’s new novel, The dicehis fourth translated into French.
Thrown into prison himself in the wake of the July 2016 putsch attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — just like thousands of his fellow citizens — the Turkish writer and journalist was sentenced to life in prison for allegedly sending “subliminal messages” during a television program a few days before the events.
Despite the five years he spent behind bars, the 73-year-old writer, one of the best-known literary figures in his country, believes that prison remains preferable to exile.
“Exile is very hard. Even harder than prison,” admits Ahmet Altan, contacted at his home in Istanbul, explaining that he never really considered leaving Turkey – which is forbidden to him anyway – after his release in April 2021. “Being exiled, it’s not just changing countries, it’s also a bit like changing planets, he adds in English. In exile you cannot return to your country. You evolve in another culture, another language. You no longer have childhood friends, nor the food you are used to. It’s very difficult. »
“In prison, even if I don’t recommend it to anyone,” he adds with a laugh, “you can speak your mother tongue and you eat poorly, but it’s your own food. You are in your country. » Exile, as a human being, would have upset him more than prison. “I don’t like moving away from my country. It’s a personality thing. »
A grain of truth
A brutal and desperate coming-of-age novel, The dice is the last of three books that Ahmet Altan wrote during his stay in prison. In I won’t see the world again (Actes Sud, 2019), in “prison texts” he recounted his arrest and his life between four walls. A genre that has unfortunately become a real trend in Turkish literature of the last century, all regimes combined. Mrs Hayat (Actes Sud, 2021, Femina foreign prize), a novel, recounted the meeting between a Turkish student and an older woman. A nameless love story, simple, deep and moving, set in an uncertain time in a country gone mad.
In The dice, during his exile, Ziya will make the improbable encounter of a modern young woman, a medical student of Jewish origin, daughter of the doctor who treated the pasha who had taken the young man under his protection. His meeting with Nora will instill in him a certain idea of love, without however allowing him to rise or find another meaning in his life. Returning to Turkey after having been amnestied, a thug rising in rank, he was involved at the age of 22 in an attack which would seal his fate.
The character existed, says Ahmet Altan, even if we know little about him. In prison, in a book he was reading, the novelist says he was intrigued by the story of two brothers who were hanged together on the same evening for the assassination of the Grand Vizier Mahmoud Chevket Pasha in 1913.
The kind of story of honor, of murder and gambling, of life and death, he admits, that attracts every writer. Thanks to his lawyer, who provided him with books and documentation, he was able to learn a little more. We know that Ziya ran away from prison at 16, that he lived in Egypt, that he was known as a gambler and that both murders are true, that’s all. The rest is fiction. “I tried to think and feel like him and wrote the book. »
“At 16, when he decided to kill his brother’s killer, he knew he would be killed. He accepted it. In a way, before he even killed anyone, he had killed himself. When you make this decision, neither death nor life can touch you. It’s a kind of bloody freedom. »
When we reach this dimension, we feel very powerful, untouchable. A feeling that can give rise to a form of dependence, believes Ahmet Altan. It’s a feeling that its protagonist tried to rediscover through the game. “During the few seconds when the dice roll, nothing matters anymore. Neither death, nor life or love. »
A link between the murder and the game that Dostoyevsky could have made, agrees Ahmet Altan. “But Ziya is a player who does not seek to win. Losing or winning has no importance for him, unlike Dostoyevsky’s hero. »
Woman, vector of humanity
Lifting the veil of a certain toxic masculinity, which poisons this part of the world even more than in the West, the novel implicitly asks the following question: what is a man, a real man? “A man is not afraid of anything, not even death,” believes Ziya, who later became “a voluntary slave to the concept of virility.” His idea of honor, Ahmet Altan tells us, also places little importance on human life. “If someone touches you, curses you or insults you, attacks your loved ones or someone you love, you take your revenge. » The consequences don’t matter. “For them, a man of honor is a dead man. » A conception of honor which was current as much in Ottoman Turkey as in aristocratic Europe, recalls the writer.
In this novel, as in several of those of the Turkish writer – let us only think of Mrs Hayat —, women seem to exert a “civilizing” influence on men. “It’s inevitable,” thinks Ahmet Altan. Without women, men would not be civilized. It’s impossible. I believe it deeply. They are the ones who make us. As mothers, as lovers, they teach us many things about life. They are wiser and know much better than us what is important and what is not. »
Without getting too involved in the slippery slope of politics, the writer recognizes that there are many parallels between the Ottoman Empire of yesterday and Turkey of today. “There are a lot of similarities. In our part of the world, some things change and some things never change. Like corruption, bad decisions nationally, hatred between people. It’s almost the same thing. »
During the few seconds when the dice roll, nothing matters anymore. Neither death, nor life or love. Ahmet Altan »