[WOMEN / EARLY TURKISH FEMINIST LITERATURE / KUNSTLERROMAN] احمد فردی / Ahmed Ferdi

DERVIS, SUAD (1905-1972).

Kitabhane-i Sudi / Orhaniye Matbaasi, Istanbul, AH 1339 = [CE 1923].

Contemporary full black cloth with gilt lettering of the title and the initials of the book’s former owner on the front board and spine, featuring Art Nouveau floral blind tooling. The original, attractive pictorial cover is preserved inside. The title calligraphy and cover design are both striking, signed by “Nuri”. Contemporary front and endpapers. Cr. 8vo. (20 x 14 cm). In Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 191, [1] p. Occasional foxing to pages, otherwise an excellent copy.

The first edition in book form of this story collection by Suad Derviş, a prominent Turkish novelist, journalist, advocate for women’s suffrage, and co-founder of Devrimci Kadinlar Birligi [i.e., the Socialist Women’s Association of Turkey].

Dervis’s story collection Ahmed Ferdi is one of three story collections published in 1923, following her first novel Kara Kitap [i.e., The Black Book, 1921]. The stories were originally serialized in Yeni Şark [i.e., The New East], an important newspaper published between 1921 and 1923 during the Turkish War of Independence, which played a significant role in representing the early women’s rights movement in Turkey.

One of Dervis’s early works, Ahmed Ferdi contains thirteen stories. The title story, which shares its name with the book, is a Künstlerroman-style fiction centering on Ahmed Ferdi, a sculptor who was once loved by a halayik [i.e., odalisque, female servant/slave], only to lose her love. The second story is an example of epistolary fiction, depicting a young woman confined to her room, who gradually descends into madness and ultimately kills her brother. Gothic elements permeate almost all the stories, featuring ghosts and spectres, madwomen, women experiencing nervous breakdowns, states of hysteria and obsession, anxieties and hallucinations, as well as intense passions and deep fears. These elements enhance the writer’s exploration of the psychological depth of her characters. The halayik appears as a recurring literary figure throughout the collection, a reflection of the author’s own maternal grandmother, Perensaz, a former slave girl from the palace of Sultan Abdülaziz (1830-1876).

“Suad Dervis’s early novels reveal a profound interest in psychology, particularly women’s psychology. Unlike the popular focus of the period on ‘Anatolian peasants,’ her works center on marginal figures and representatives of the urban poor. As a novelist who spent her youth in Istanbul and the major European metropolises (Paris, Berlin, Lausanne), Derviş was distinctly an ‘urban’ writer, concerned with processes of individualization - a theme that stood in stark contrast to the dominant solidaristic and corporatist ideologies of the time. Her sincere portrayals of human psychology, coupled with her exceptional ability to introspect and understand others, became a hallmark of her writing and contributed significantly to her popularity. Her depth of insight was also enriched by her capacity to intertwine analyses of gender and class issues.” (Berktay).

Suat Dervis (Hatice Saadet Baraner) was born in 1905 to an aristocratic and liberal family in Istanbul. She was privately tutored by her sister at home in French and German and in literature and music. After World War I, Dervis went to Germany, where she attended the Berlin School of Music and Berlin University Faculty of Letters. Her first piece of writing was a prose poem published in the newspaper Alemdar [i.e., Standard-bearer] in 1920. She began her literary career writing pieces both in Turkish newspapers/magazines and in German periodicals about Turkey (among them Die Berliner Zeitung). Dervis at the same time started to work as a freelance journalist and reported on the Lausanne Conference in 1922-1923. In 1930, after having joined the oppositional Serbest Cumhuriyet Firkasi (Liberal Republican Party), which advocated women’s suffrage, she ran in the local elections together with Nezihe Muhittin (1889-1958), a leading feminist political figure. They were unsuccessful in the elections and the party itself was soon banned. During the 1930s, Dervis moved closer to a communist position. She got married four times, and her last and longest marriage (1941-1968) is with Resit Fuat Baraner, Secretary General of the Turkish Communist Party. The magazine Yeni Edebiyat (New Literature) was the main media organ of the Party and Suat Dervis was one of its prominent writers. In 1970, she was among the founders of the Devrimci Kadinlar Birligi (Socialist Women’s Association), which aimed to create a revolutionary women’s movement and raise women’s consciousness. Her only source of income was her writing, and she left behind more than 40 novels, 100s of stories, 1000s of articles, and lots of translations.

Sources: The article of Suad Dervis in “A Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries” by Fatmagul Berktay. “The Madwoman in the Attic” by S. Gilbert & S. Gubar.

Özege 223., TBTK 5632., As of March 2025, OCLC shows five copies worldwide, none is in the US libraries.