Giritli Ali Aziz Efendi

Giritli Ali Aziz Efendi (1749, in Kandiye (Heraklion) – 29 October 1798, in Berlin) was a late-18th century Ottoman ambassador and author.

He is best known for his novel "Muhayyelât" (Imaginations), a unique work of fiction blending personal and fantastic themes, well in the current of the traditional Ottoman prose, but also exhibiting influences from Western literature.

Consisting in three parts and written in a laconical style contrasting with its content, where djinns and fairies surge from within contexts drawn from ordinary real life situations, Ali Aziz Efendi often pursues by pulling the reader towards description of magic and to extraordinary occurrences.

Inspired by a much older story written both in Arabic and Assyrian, the author also displays in his work his deep knowledge of sufism, hurufism and Bektashi traditions.

Ali Aziz Efendi also wrote further and shorter works of prose, which present as complementary extensions to Muhayyelât, as well as some poetry, and kept a correspondence with a number of notable figures of his time, both Ottoman and Western.