Sergüzest

Samipasazade Sezai

Sami Pashazade Sezai was born in Istanbul in 1860. He was the son of Abdurrahman Sami Pasha, the first Minister of Education of the Ottoman State, and received private education in his father's mansion. In 1880, he entered a Foundation, headed by his elder brother Suphi Pasha, as a civil servant. He was appointed to London in 1881 and studied English and French literatures during his 4 years in England. He resigned from his duty at the embassy and returned to Istanbul and became a clerk in the Consultation Room. Thinking that he was under probation for his first novel "Sergüzest", he went to Paris in 1901 and stayed in Paris until the declaration of the Constitutional Monarchy. After the proclamation of the 2nd Constitutional Monarchy in 1908, he returned to Istanbul. His first novel, "Sergüzest", which made him famous, is considered one of the successful examples of the transition from romanticism to realism in Turkish literature.