Losers' Tale

“Losers’ Tale,” the first of the Istanbul Quartet series, is widely considered to be novelist Hikmet Temel Akarsu’s magnum opus. It met with great critical acclaim in 1998, the year it was published. It lived up to be one of the most important books of the counterculture in the following years. Today, it is a cult handiwork describing the economical depression of the 1990s and the grunge movement.

In this novel, Akarsu has depicted a very extraordinary, conspicuous and even startling picture of Istanbul’s less known spots and domains. This first book of the “Istanbul Quartet” series, written in a style the author nicknamed as “Rock ’n’ Roman” (Turkish for “Rock ’n’ Novel), focuses mainly on Kadikoy and its surrounding district. It talks about people who frequent underground locations, meet at a bar called “Decadence,” and while suffering from an inevitable dejection, choose to be rebels along the lines of the “Losers’ Club” which they identify themselves with.

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