Falih Rıfkı Atay

Falih Rıfkı was the son of Halil Hilmi Efendi, an imam. He was educated in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire.[1] Falih began his career as a journalist in the Tanin, a CUP newspaper.[1] He later became the private secretary of Talat Pasha, and during World War I accompanied Cemal Pasha in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign.[1] After the war, he, with three other friends, founded the newspaper Akşam supporting the Turkish War of Independence.[1] From 1919 to 1920 Falih Rıfkı was one of the contributors of Büyük Mecmua magazine which also supported the war of independence.[2] On September 9, 1922, he travelled to the liberated Izmir to visit Mustafa Kemal Atatürk with Yakup Kadri and arrived on the 13th of September just before the fire.[3] Later, he became an editor-in-chief in the Hakimiyet-i Milliye. He entered politics in 1923, and served as deputy of Bolu and later Ankara in the parliament until the 1950 Turkish general election.[1]

In the early 1950s Atay contributed to the history magazine Tarih Dünyası.[4] He was the author of more than 30 works.[1]

Falih Rıfkı Atay died on 20 March 1971 in Istanbul. He was interred there at Zincirlikuyu Cemetery.

A nature park inside the Belgrad Forest in Sarıyer district of Istanbul Province was named in his honor in 2011.[5]

• Ateş ve Güneş, (Fire and Sun), 1918, Memories of World War I in Syria and Palestine
• Zeytindağı (Mount of Olives), 1932, Memories of World War I in Syria and Palestine
• Yeni Rusya (New Russia), 1931, Travelbook
• Çankaya (See Çankaya Mansion), 1952 and 1962, Memories of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
• Babanız Atatürk, 1955, Memories of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

• İzmir’den Bursa’ya, (From Izmir to Bursa), 1922, Greek Atrocities during the Greek Occupation of Western Anatolia, co-authors: Halide Edip, Yakup Kadri, Ruşen Eşref and Asım Us.[6]