Seeing her name and her most secret thoughts exposed on the printed page, Suat burst into tears. After telling Nâzım never to poke his nose in her private business again, she ran from the room, slamming the door behind her. But she did submit a story to the next edition of that journal. In the months and years that followed, she became the regular contributor she had never agreed to be, crossing the Bosphorus by ferry to the Sirkeci quarter, in the old city, climbing the narrow lane up to the publishing district of Babıali to deliver by hand her stories and articles to this and like journals. Her confident manner and fashionably modest attire won her a certain degree of respect, though no one in those smoke-filled, men-only offices knew quite what to make of her. If she ever heard the nervous sniggers she may have left in her wake, she was too happy to care.

“I am not ashamed of being a woman,” she once said. “And I take great pride in being a writer. That title is my sole fortune, my single pride, and my bread.” Her aim in life was “to gaze at the stars” without impediment.