Istanbul Quartet is considered to be novelist and satirist Hikmet Temel Akarsu

Hikmet Temel Akarsu

Hikmet Temel Akarsu is a Turkish novelist, short-story writer, satirist and playwright. He was born in Gümüşhane, Turkey in 1960, and moved to Istanbul with his family at the age of nine....

’s magnum opus. Losers' Tale

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...

, The Englishman, Little Devil and Media are the four volumes that make up this series. The other name the author came up with for the quartet is Rock ’N’ Roman (Rock ’N’ Novel in Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

). It is one of the most extensive rock ’n’ roll novels in the world – if not the most prodigious. It talks about the nihilist

Nihilism

Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...

 feelings formed inside the grunge

Grunge

Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...

movement during the economical crisis of the 1990s. This series is considered to be a cult epic in Turkish counterculture and literature.