Falih Rıfkı Atay

He 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 Jamal 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] In 1922, he travelled to the recaptured Izmir to visit Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. 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]

He is the author of more than 30 works.[1]

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

A nature park inside the Belgrad Forest in Sarıyer district of Istanbul Province was named in his honor in 2011.[2]

• 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