Duygu Asena, 60, Turkish Feminist
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Duygu Asena, a best-selling writer and crusader for women’s rights in Turkey, died yesterday in Istanbul after a two-year battle with a brain tumor. She was 60.
Asena had trained to be a teacher but began writing for newspaper women’s pages in the early 1970s.
The message, as she wrote in a magazine article, was this: “Escape the vicious circle. Fight for your equal rights,” and get a job as a first step toward freedom.
In 1978, she founded the first women’s magazine in Turkey. Ignoring taboos, Asena was the first Turkish writer to explore such topics as women’s rights, sexuality and wife-beating.
“Woman Has No Name,” broke sales records when it was printed in 1987, but was soon banned by the government which found it to be too lewd and obscene.The ban was lifted after a twoyear court battle. A film adaptation of the book broke box office records in Turkey.
