In this pressentation, I explore methodological challenges of studying a bilingual writer, activist, politican, and feminist whose work spans roughly 60 years. Halide Edib (Adıvar)`s life story and works provide challenges that make it difficult for scholars to make claims based on textual analysis of solitary works. Halide Edib writes at different historical moments to different target readers in different languages, discusses politics in different cultural milieux, and engages in self-translation and non-translation, while experimenting with different genres, varying from autobiography and the novel to absurdist drama. Through her example, I would like to expand to different methods of approaching Turkish literature in a comparative context.