Halide. Words of flame

Three Turkish performers from different generations embody Halide Edip Adıvar, the controversial freedom fighter and icon of the early women’s movement in Turkey. There is the highly educated girl from the Ottoman bourgeoisie who writes persuasive articles about women’s rights. There is the war reporter who learns to ride a horse so she can join the frontline as a freedom fighter in the War of Independence. And there is the intellectual pacifist and friend of Gandhi. This passionate woman fought for contradictory goals throughout her life, but was always able to think on her feet and remained a self-determined protagonist: as a writer, activist, freedom fighter, pacifist, educator and scientist, as a mother and lover. Halide did not allow herself to be pigeonholed, did not subordinate herself. With the founding of the Republic, she chose exile, from which she returned to Turkey only in 1939. Emre Koyuncuoğlu weaves together a tapestry of literary and documentary sources about a dazzling woman and stubborn evolutionary.