Halide Edip Adivar (1884-1964) was a Turkish writer, scholar, and public figure dedicated to the rights of women and their emancipation. She attempted to analyze the rapid transition of Turkish society and to depict the deep-seated conflict the society faced through the clash between Eastern and Western culture.

Halide Edip was born in 1884 in Istanbul as the daughter of Mehmet Edip bey, private treasurer of Sultan Abdulhamit II, later director of the Régie Française de Tabac at Yanina and Bursa. Although she did not attend primary school, she received private lessons from well known personalities in the field of social sciences, philosophy, and mathematics. After graduating in 1901 from the American Girls College in Usküdar/Istanbul, she married her former tutor, the mathematician Salih Riza bey; two boys--Ayetullah and Hikmetullah--were born to the couple. After 1907 her articles were published in the newspaper Tanin...