Halide Edib

Halide Edib Adıvar

Halide Edip Adıvar

First published in 1937, this is a book about India as seen through the eyes of the well-known Turkish writer and novelist, Halid� Edib, who visited the region in 1935. It makes a conscious attempt to document significant contemporary events that were shaping the history of India at the time, such as the Gandhian movement and the Hindu-Muslim separatism.

Inside India

A prominent novelist, social activist, journalist, and nationalist, Halide Adivar Edib (1882-1964) was one of Turkey's leading feminists in the Young Turk and early Republican period. Memoirs is the first book in her two volume English-language autobiography, published in 1926, whilst she and her second husband Dr. Adnan were in exile in London and Paris having fallen out of favor with Mustafa Kemal's one-party regime. Yn it Edib describes her childhood, her confrontation with her first husband's polygyny, her divorce, and her entry into political and literary writing. Providing an account of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, the Balkan and First World Wars, and ending with the demise of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Edib explains her philosophy of pacifist nationalism, and her ideas on Islam and Islamic civilisation. Her retrospective account of Young Turk and nationalist politics, emphasizing the agency of Ottoman women in their fight for emancipation, aimed to redress the Kemalist account of Republican historiography, which undermined the activities of the Young Turks in order to praise the reforms of the Republican period. Edib's account of her private life provides a unique example of a woman's individual and personal struggle for emancipation and gender equality. Hulya Adak is Assistant Professor in the Cultural Studies Program, Sabancı University, Istanbul, Turkey. Cultures in Dialogue returns to print sources by women writers from the East and West. Series One considers the exchanges between Ottoman, British, and American women from the 1880s to the 1940s. Their varied responses to dilemmas such as nationalism, female emancipation, race relations and modernization in the context of the stereotypes characteristic of Western harem literature reframe the historical tensions between Eastern and Western cultures, offering a nuanced understanding of their current manifestations."

Memoirs of Halidé Edib

This edition of Halidé Edib Adivar's Memoirs, prefaced with Sibel Erol's excellent introduction, is important and timely. When stereotypes of women in the Muslim world abound, Halidé's memoirs remind us of the courage and dedication of "foremothers" who struggled for emancipation at both personal and national levels. These memoirs open a window on the search for personal expression of a woman caught up in the oppressive dynamics of her polygamous households (parental and marital), and the travails of national liberation and nation-building in Turkey, in which she played an active role. Halide speaks to us with an urgency which now cries out to be heard more than ever. Halidé Edib's memoirs are indispensable reading for anyone interested in the history of childhood and education in the late Ottoman Empire. Edib worked to spread public education, instituting schools in Istanbul and in the Arab provinces during World War I. Her account is vibrant and direct, off ering an excellent witness to this critical period during which the Empire collapsed. Halidé Edib lived through the most turbulent times in modern Turkish history. Most unusually for a woman of her day, she did so not only as an eyewitness, but as an active political participant. She was on close personal terms with powerful leaders such as Talat Pasha and Ataturk, but retained a critical and independent mind. All this gives her memoirs their unique character. The book provides new light on the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish nation.

Memoirs of Turkey Old and New

House with Wisteria

This edition of Halide Edib Adivar's Memoirs, prefaced with Sibel Erol's excellent introduction, is important and timely. When stereotypes of women in the Muslim world abound, Halide's memoirs remind us of the courage and dedication of "foremothers" who struggled for emancipation at both personal and national levels. These memoirs open a window on the search for personal expression of a woman caught up in the oppressive dynamics of her polygamous households (parental and marital), and the travails of national liberation and nation-building in Turkey, in which she played an active role. Halide speaks to us with an urgency which now cries out to be heard more than ever. Halide Edib's memoirs are indispensable reading for anyone interested in the history of childhood and education in the late Ottoman Empire. Edib worked to spread public education, instituting schools in Istanbul and in the Arab provinces during World War I. Her account is vibrant and direct, off ering an excellent witness to this critical period during which the Empire collapsed. Halide Edib lived through the most turbulent times in modern Turkish history. Most unusually for a woman of her day, she did so not only as an eyewitness, but as an active political participant. She was on close personal terms with powerful leaders such as Talat Pasha and Ataturk, but retained a critical and independent mind. All this gives her memoirs their unique character. The book provides new light on the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish nation.

Halide Edib

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