She was born in Istanbul in 1884. After having
graduated from Uskudar American College for Girls, she attended philosophy, sociology and
mathematics classes of famous people such as Rıza Tevfik, Salih Zeki. She taught in many
schools and worked as an inspector. She taught Western Literature classes in the
University. She took part in Anatolian movement. She became a corporal and a sergeant. She
went to America with her second husband Dr. Adnan Adıvar. She lived in foreign land for
fifteen years. She passed away in 1964 when she was 80. Halide Edip had married Mathematician
Salih Zeki who taught her. Her first articles are in the form of prose-verse. Her first
novels are simple biographical novels. She talks about woman spirit very well in Handan.
Kalb Ağrısı, Zeynonun Oğlu, Mev'ut Hüküm are such books. Then she wrote novels such
as Vurun Kahpeye, Ateşten Gömlek with social objectives and Yeni Turan, influenced by
ideas of Ziya Gökalp.
She had motivated the
people to war for the sake of liberation with her emotional oration in the big public
meeting arranged by Women Union in Sultanahmet Quarter during the days of armistice. She
described this in her novel named Sinekli Bakkal and memoirs named Türkün Ateşle İmtihanı.
Halide Edip supported
"mandate" idea which would make Turkey undergo American protection at that time.
After she joined Anatolia, she changed her ideas and her closeness to Ataturk showed her
the realities. However, after she and Adnan Adıvar got married, they went abroad because
they did not like what was made in the first years of the republic and since they could
not make Ataturk listen to them. They addressed lectures and conferences promoting Turkish
revolutions in Europe and America. However, since these were not all really praising and
promoting ones, they could only return to the country after Ataturk's death.
The best example of
their works abroad was her novel published in London, named The Daughter of the Clown. She
expanded this book later, and wrote in Turkish under the name Sinekli Bakkal. This book is
the most successful example of environment novel type initiated by Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu
with his novel Kiralık Konak. Halide Edip Adıvar is the first woman artist writing an
opera libretto in our literature. "Ken'an Çobanları", telling the story of
Prophet Yusuf published in 1918 was composed later on.
The most important
properties of her stories and novels are that they were written in an emotional and
fascinating style, that her observations are realistic and true and that her composition
is sound. Her women characters are similar. She always handled the same woman character
with strong personality, which is her own portrait. However, her style is somehow
irregular. She says herself that she does not read what she wrote again. Fazıl Ahmet Aykaç
stated the following right judgement about her in his replies to the questionnaire named
"They say" by Ruşen Eşref Unaydın in 1918:
"Halide Hanim takes us to a beautiful sight she
promised. But you can walk there if you have strong shoes and feet. This is because the
way is stony, confused and thorny. The style is very chaotic, but there is a new and aware
spirit behind it. How can I say it? The books of Halide Hanim are like delicious but bony
sardine".
The "new
spirit" the author talks about here was application of Anglo-American novel technique
to our literature used to French analyst technique by showing spiritual analyses in the
events they reflect upon. Halide Edip Adıvar is the first writer trying this as a natural
consequence of education.
Halide Edip Adıvar
lived in England and French between 1926 and 1939 together with her second husband Dr.
Adnan Adıvar. She was invited to America at the same time and addressed conferences on
Near East Opinion History in leading universities of America and even gave lectures in
Columbia University between 1931 and 1932 as guest professor.
She was invited to
Delhi University in India in 1935 and her conferences in Kalkuta, Benares, Haydarabat,
Aligar, Lahor and Peşaver Universities attracted great attention. The great poet, whose
conferences in India were published as a book by universities turned back to Istanbul in
1939 and the next year took the chair of English Literature Professorship of Faculty of
Letters.
Halide Edip, won CHP
Novel award in 1942 with Sinekli Bakkal. Her books were filmed Ateşten Gömlek in 1923
and 1949 two times (Actress Bedia Müvahhit, started her cinema life with this film
first), Vurun Kahpeye in 1949 and 1955, Yolpalas Cinayeti in 1956, and Sinekli Bakkal in
1967. This last book broke a record by being published twenty six times until 1968. At the
same time, the translations of Sinekli Bakkal novel into English, Norwegian and Flemish
languages attracted great interest and were read with appreciation.
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