Hüseyin Rahmi Gürpinar

Born Aug. 17, 1864, in Istanbul; died there Mar. 8, 1944. Turkish author and journalist.

Gürpmar began to publish his works in 1887. He was in the thick of Istanbul’s sociopolitical events at the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th. He was a deputy to the Majlis (1936–43). Gürpinar supported the “literature for the people” trend. A main theme in his works is criticism of the feudal basis in family relations and of the vices of bourgeois society. Gürpinar created brilliant satirical images in his novels The Elegant One (1888), The Governess (1897–98), The Witch (1912), Talisman of Love (1928), and The Man Without Shame (1934). Many of Gürpinar’s works were influenced by E. Zola’s naturalism.