Her articles and columns advocated for reforming the rights of women and workers and criticized state oppression, imperialism, fascism and social inequalities in Turkey.

Her high-profile activism for democracy, civil liberties and a free press resulted in social and political pressure, censorship, imprisonment and ultimately, exile.

Sertel is considered the first to publicly marry outside the dönme community, Jews who converted to Islam in the 17th century but privately retained their beliefs and were viewed with suspicion by Muslims.

Their publications Büyük Mecmua (The Big Review), Resimli Ay, (Illustrated Monthly magazine) and the newspaper Tan (Dawn), served as powerful platforms for opposition voices.

Her family was part of the dönmeh community, a small group that converted from Judaism to Islam in the 17th century but privately retained their beliefs and was viewed with suspicion by the Muslim population in the empire.

In her autobiography Roman Gibi, Sertel describes witnessing the starkly unequal relationship of her parents and domestic abuse of her mother.

Even though Atiye was supporting the family as a washerwoman, her father, a retired bureaucrat, flew into a rage and divorced her mother on the spot in accordance with Islamic law, throwing her out of the house.

In her memoir, she elaborated on these years and described Büyük Mecmua as a vehicle for discussing ways of rebuilding the country, from Turkish nationalism and New-Ottomanism to socialism and feminism.

The book traces the seeds of many of Atatürk's reforms after the War of Independence (1919-1923) to the intellectual debates in Büyük Mecmua, as well as the push for women's equal rights, providing at alternative point-of-view to traditional historical analysis.

After Büyük Mecmua folded, Sertel moved to New York City with her husband and young daughter to continue their education with the help of scholarships arranged by Halide Edip.

[1] Sertel studied The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels and Woman and Socialism by August Bebel which she later translated.

Sertel proposed conducting a social survey to determine post-war living conditions of children as well as related issues, including the state of health, child labor and education.

An avowed communist, Hikmet remained a close family friend of the Sertels, as well as a major influence on their artistic and political views for the rest of their lives.

As the tension between leftist writers and the nationalist press increased, a government-orchestrated mob of thousands destroyed the offices of Tan and its publishing house on 4 December 1945.

Sabiha Sertel spent the rest of her life in exile, living in Paris, Budapest, Leipzig, Moscow and Baku in Soviet Azerbaijan.

In 1958, the Sertels secretly collaborated with Nâzım Hikmet on “Bizim Radyo”, a communist-funded radio station broadcasting news to Turkey from Budapest.