Peyami SAFA 1899 – 1961

He is a Turkish journalist, story writer and novelist. The author, who also uses the pseudonym Server Bedi, is known for his intellectual works, polemics, being columnist and journalism as well as his novels.

He was born in İstanbul in 1899. When he was two years old, his father, the poet İsmail Safa, died in Sivas, where he was in exile, so his childhood was spent with his brother and mother with relatives. Due to the illness that he had in his childhood, he could not receive a regular education and was self-taught. 
Peyami Safa, who had to leave Vefa High School due to financial difficulties, passed the exam and started to work at the Ministry of Post and Telegraph. He worked as a teacher at the Rehber-i İttihat School.

In 1918, he started his journalism and writing life by publishing his stories called Asrın Öyküyeleri in the Yirminci Asır newspaper, which he published with his brother İlhami Safa. Later, he worked for Son Telgraf, Tasvir-i Efkar, Cumhuriyet, Milliyet and Tercüman newspapers. He published the magazines Kültür Haftası and Türk Düşüncesi.

His most well-known works are detective series novels under the name of Cingöz Recai, the novel Matmazel Noraliya’nın Koltuğu, which tells the story of a young man who turns to philosophy and mystical worldview, and Dokuzuncu Hariciye Koğuşu, which reflects the psychology of a young patient. In his novels Mahşer, Şimşek, Fatih-Harbiye and Biz Insan, he wrote by embodying the East-West problem and the contradictions experienced by the people.

When he died on June 15, 1961, he was the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Son Havadis.