Historical Fiction Annotation

Last Train to Istanbul

by Ayse Kulin

Publisher: Everest Publications, Istanbul (Aug. 2006)
Format: Paperback, 414 pages
Geographical Setting: Turkey and France
Time Period: 1933 through 1943

Summary:

"Is there some corner of this vast world where people live without tormenting each other?"

Newly married Selva (a Muslim) and her husband, Rafael (a Jew), leave Istanbul for Paris in the hope of a better life.  However, they didn’t anticipate a few years later the Vichy government would be collaborating with Hitler. As the Gestapo start rounding up Jews, Selva finds a way to help them escape until Raphael too is captured.  With the help of her brother-in-law (undersecretary for the Turkish Foreign Minister) in Ankara and his colleagues at the Turkish Consuls in Paris and Marseilles, they are able to free Rafael. With help from the French Resistance movement, a plan is established to have a ‘special’ train transport the Turkish Jews (and others with forged papers) back to Istanbul.

Turkey dangerously plays a political game with the Axis and Allies while trying to maintain its neutrality during the war.

Elements of a Historical Romance:

Story Line: The author decided to focus her novel on an important yet forgotten story.  One of the heroic efforts of Turkish diplomats and a young Turk in the French Resistance attempt to rescue the Jews from France during WWII.  She “explains and contextualizes events, linking them to the settings of the period and to particular characters and their motivations” (p. 172).

Pacing: The story isn’t fast paced as it takes place over a ten year span from the point of view of two sisters, their families, other families, and various diplomatic figures and resistance fighters.  Each of these characters has a “detailed background” (p. 172). Due to the nature of the story, the pace starts off slow, but picks up once Rafael is captured and Selva finally agrees to leave France for Istanbul.

Tone: Being set in the 1930’s and WWII, the novel is grim and somber, but full of anticipation waiting to see if the characters will escape to Istanbul or be sent to the camps after being caught by the Gestapo.  Various meetings between Inonu, Von Papen, de Gaulle, Churchill, Roosevelt and other leading diplomats of the time were serious and ‘threatening’. Descriptions of life at the camp David is sent to are dark and harsh.

Frame/Setting: Full of ‘accurate historical detail’, the author describes the political events in Turkey and France and the people it affected from 1933 to 1943.  The various societies (Turkish, French, German, Hungarian) and their religious beliefs, customs, and cultures are also historically accurate. The geographical descriptions are detailed as the author takes us back and forth from Istanbul and Ankara to Paris and Marseilles with brief stops in Lyon and Cairo.  The author uses authentic correspondence and archives to back up her narratives and has a short bibliography of other Turkish resources.

Historical Fiction Read-A-Likes:

Fiction:

All the Light There Was by Nancy Kricorian

Once Night Falls by Ronald Merullo

Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

NonFiction:

Turkey and the Rescue of Jews during the Nazi Era dissertation by I. Izzet Bahar

Turkey and the Holocaust by Stanford J. Shaw

The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic by Stanford J. Shaw

Works Cited:

Saricks, J. G. (2019). The readers’ advisory guide to genre fiction. Chicago: ALA.