Duygu Asena

Advocate for Turkish women. A best-selling writer and women's rights activist of Turkey Duygu Asena is well known for her book, 'Woman Has No Name' that broke sales records when it was printed in 1987 - and a film adaptation of the book broke box office records in Turkey. Trained to be a teacher Duygu began writing for newspaper - women's pages - from early 1970s. She also wrote weekly columns for the wider-circulation dailies Hurriyet and Cumhuriyet and hosted a women's programme on a state-owned television channel. She founded the first women's magazine in Turkey in 1978. Ignoring taboos, she became the first Turkish writer to explore such topics as women's rights, sexuality and wife-beating. Asena's eight other feminist novels, which achieved large sales, include 'Nor Do They Need Love', 'Nothing Has Changed' and 'There Was Love in the Mirror'. Duygu Asena was born into a middle-class family in Istanbul. She never married and died after a two-year battle with a brain tumour.

Compiler: M. Nauman Khan