Zeynep Oktay is assistant professor at the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at Boğaziçi University in Turkey. Oktay studied Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College (USA) and completed her PhD in Islamic Civilization at École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. Between 2014-2016, Oktay worked as a research fellow on the research project “The Islamisation of Anatolia, c. 1100-1500” based at the University of St. Andrews in the UK. She is the author of Mesnevî-i Baba Kaygusuz (Harvard University Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, 2013), as well as two poetry books named Birlerken (Epona 2024) and Soy (Epona 2026). Oktay has also translated Henry Corbin’s L’Imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn Arabi (Birle Bir Olmak: İbn Arabi Tasavvufunda Yaratıcı Muhayyile, Pinhan Yayınevi, 2013). Her journal articles and book chapters have recently appeared in a collected volume under the name Yol Benem Menzil Benem: Tasavvuf ve Alevi-Bektaşi Edebiyatı İncelemeleri (Alfa Kitap, 2026). Oktay’s forthcoming monograph, titled I am the Essence of God: Kaygusuz Abdal and Dervish Poetry (Brill, 2027) focuses on the literature produced by antinomian Sufi groups (abdals) in Anatolia and the Balkans. She is a member of the scientific board of Institut français d’islamologie (IFI) and a recipient of Turkish Science Academy’s Young Scholar Award (BAGEP) for 2025, the first award in the Academy’s history to be given in the field of Literature.