by Adalet Agaoglu

By 1984, the year Curfew first appeared in Turkey, Adalet Agaoglu was already an admired and widely discussed author. Although preferring not to identify herself as a feminist (she declares that she is writing about human beings), Agaoglu is a prominent spokesperson for women and deals extensively with women’s issues in her writing. She was born as Adalet Sümer in 1929 to a shopkeeper’s family in a small town not far from Ankara, the newly designated capital of Turkey. After graduating from Ankara University with a degree in French literature, Adalet worked for the State Radio-TV organization, wrote several radio plays, and saw some of her stage plays performed. In 1983 she and her husband, Halim Agaoglu (pronounced A-ah-oh-lu), moved permanently to Istanbul. Adalet Agaoglu is part of the second generation to attend school after Atatürk’s revolutionary changes in Turkey and her work...