Suzy Hansen on Turkey and an Istanbul neighborhood in the age of Erdoğan

In a deeply immersive exploration of modern Turkey, journalist Susie Hansen uses the overlooked Istanbul neighborhood of Karagümrük as a lens to examine the country’s transformation under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Rather than offering a broad political narrative, Hansen focuses on the micro-dynamics of daily life—neighborhood politics, migration, identity, and the quiet resilience of ordinary people. Through intimate portraits of characters like Ismail, the longtime Muhtar with a nostalgic memory of Istanbul’s multicultural past, and Ebru, a feminist real estate agent challenging the status quo, she reveals how authoritarianism, economic collapse, and waves of migration have reshaped both individual lives and collective memory. The book’s most striking revelation is that Turkey’s current crises aren’t just political—they’re deeply rooted in centuries of internal migration, urban tension, and the cyclical rejection of newcomers, from 1950s Greeks to 2010s Syrians. Hansen shows how the same people who vilify refugees in public often help them in private, exposing a profound contradiction at the heart of Turkish society. Her work is not a polemic but a quiet, devastating portrait of a city and nation caught between memory and survival. The book’s power lies in its refusal to reduce people to ideology. Hussein, once a fervent Erdogan supporter, becomes a broken man as Turkey’s economy collapses—his personal story mirroring the nation’s disillusionment.