A major work of contemporary Turkish literature, Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale tells the stories of three generations of a Jewish family from the 1920s to the 1980s. Istanbul is their only home, and yet they live in a state of alienation, isolating themselves from the world around them. As witness, observer, and protagonist, the narrator-at once inside and outside of his story-records their many tales, as well as those of their friends and neighbors, creating an expansive mosaic of characters, each doing their best to survive the twentieth century.
