He was the grandson of Arif Pasha, an Ottoman governor of the Taif district and the son of Ali Riza Bey, a penal judge of the young Turkish Republic and later a farmer, and Meliha Hanim.
According to the literary critic Fethi Naci, these short stories represent a very early example of magical realism genre.
He died on 11 January 1995 in Istanbul resulting from injuries sustained in a bomb attack (claimed by İBDA-C, later revealed to be carried out by PKK[2]) which occurred on 30 December 1994 at The Marmara Hotel's cafeteria in Taksim Square, Istanbul.
(A story in Ishak called "Yunus" was published in English in the United States in Grand Street magazine (Winter, 1995)).
Ishak (1959) Hakkari'de Bir Mevsim (1983) Hazal (1980) Yusuf ile Kenan (1979)