Celebrated in the West -- particularly Germany and France, where he won literary prizes while still behind bars -- Altan remains in a tricky situation back home, where he faces the threat of further prosecution.

But speaking to AFP in his Istanbul flat, Altan said he would rather spend his last days in a Turkish prison "where I spoke my native language" than be a free man in exile, where "you are nearly no one (and) have no roots".

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"Writers are very anxious because every minute is a minute that you can write, you can do your job, so every minute that you don’t write, you feel regret," he said in fluent English.

"I feel it now much more than before prison," he confided, ensconced in a black leather chair flanked by stacks of books.

'Revenge'

Altan, who has sold nearly seven million books worldwide, was one of tens of thousands of Turks jailed or fired from their jobs in purges that followed a 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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