Writer and journalist Ahmet Altan was arrested in September 2016, accused of sending subliminal messages in support of the failed coup d'état. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in February 2018. He was released in 2021 after the European court of human rights demanded the 71-year-old's freedom in a verdict that accused Turkey of violating his civil rights. An advocate for Kurdish and Armenian minorities and a central figure in the Turkish cultural world, Altan is the author of ten novels, including Like a Sword Wound (Europa Editions), Endgame (Canongate), and prison memoir I Will Never See the World Again (Granta).

Brendan Freely was born in Princeton, NJ, in 1959 and studied psychology at Yale University. He has been working as freelance a literary translator since 2004, and has translated over twenty books. He is also co-author, with John Freely, of Galata, Pera, Beyoglu: A Biography about the social history, architecture and topography of the Beyoglu district of Istanbul.