Books in the Cultures in Dialogue: First Series series

Lady Annie Brassey (1839-1887) possess a keen eye for human interest and narrative detail that propelled her to international fame as a travel writer.

Born as a Greek Ottoman in Istanbul, Demetra Vaka Brown (1877-1946) moved to America where she became a journalist and novelist, revisiting Turkey to write several books about the twilight of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the Turkish Republic.

As Anna Bowman Dodd (1855-1929), a New York travel writer and journalist, journeyed to Istanbul with the American Ambassador to France she embarked on a detailed account of the city and its people.

A prominent novelist, social activist, journalist, and nationalist, Halide Edib Adivar (1882-1964) was one of Turkey's leading feminists in the Young Turk and early 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.

Born into the Ottoman Muslim elite, Zeyneb Hanoum and her sister Melek Hanoum were given a Western-style education by their progressive father, who expected them subsequently to live the segregated lives of Ottoman ladies.