Beginning a writing career under Turkey's more liberal constitution of 1960, Adalet Agaoglu (born 1929), a playwright, author, and human rights activist, became Turkey's most prized female novelist. A revered intellectual and a co-founder of the Arena Theatre Company, she got her start in drama while directing Turkish national radio. In her sixties, she lent her support to human rights causes and to liberals protesting the suffering of Kurdish political prisoners.

Adalet Agaoglu was born in 1929 in Nallihan in the Ankara Province of west central Turkey. After completing a degree in French literature from the University of Ankara, she began graduate work in Paris. On return to Turkey, she assisted with cultural programming for the state radio and co-founded the Arena Theatre Company. At the start of her writing career, she pursued free expression of controversial subject matter during a period of intellectual and ethical ferment and published essays and...