Samipaşazade Sezai (1859–1936) was an Ottoman writer known for his novel, Sergüzeşt (Adventure, 1889) and his short story collection, Küçük Şeyler (Little Things, 1892). Iclal Vanwesenbeeck is Associate Professor at the State University of New York, Fredonia. Her current research focuses on animal studies, primarily animals and the Iraq war, and music and literature; in particular, opera in late Ottoman literature. She is also the translator of various poems by the Ottoman poet Nigâr binti Osman, Halide Edip’s fiction, prose poems by Mehmet Rauf, and Samipaşazade Sezai’s short story, ‘Pantomime’. Burcu Karahan is Lecturer in Turkish Literature and Language at the Comparative Literature Department, Stanford University. She specialises in late 19th- and early 20th-century Ottoman literature, with a particular focus on the novel, literary translation, sexuality and Ottoman modernisation. Her current research and translation project explores erotic fiction from the Second Constitutional Era, examining its connections to national and literary history.

• AcknowledgmentsTranslators’ NoteList of FiguresForewordIntroductionSamipaşazade Sezai’s 1924 PrefaceThe Adventures of a Slave GirlAppendicesAppendix A: Slave Sale Deed #1Appendix B: Slave Sale Deed #2Appendix C: Slave Sale Deed #3Appendix D: Slave Sale Deed #4Appendix E: Slave Sale Deed #5ChronologyFurther Reading on Ottoman Slavery

This is a significant text not just in terms of literary history, but for cultural insight into late Ottoman modernity as well as contingent aspects of gender, (white) slavery, and human rights in the region.