An Author Between Fiction and Reality: Ahmet Mithat Efendi

For the Ottomans, attempts to know the outer world begin with the gazavatnames, memoirs and letters of captives held in foreign countries and go on with the sefaretnames and seyahatnames. One of the main functions of the novel is to reflect the lives of the communities in which it was born. With the Tanzimat the novel undertakes another mission and it becomes one of the windows opening to the West for the Ottomans. Initially, many Ottoman authors aim both to educate the people and to introduce them the Western life by means of the novels. One of those authors is Ahmet Mithat Efendi, who had works in various fields of literature. The author, believing that the primary aim of literature is to educate people, tries to open up a wide window into Europe for the Ottoman readers with his novel Paris’te Bir Türk, which he wrote without having ever been to Paris himself before and his seyahatname titled Avrupa’da Bir Cevelan, which he wrote during his long trip around Europe. Readers notice several commonalities in both novels that were written for the same purposes. In both works, he is a dauntless advocate of the Ottoman culture, and he never gives up on his purpose of gathering information about all innovations of the European civilization which he thinks will be beneficial for his country and of promoting them to his country