Alev Scott was born in London in 1987 to a Turkish mother and a British father. She studied Classics at Oxford before working in London as an assistant director in theatre and opera. In 2011 she moved to Istanbul, where she taught Latin at the Bosphorus University. Her first book, Turkish Awakening, was shortlisted for the Paddy Power Political Book Awards, Debut Political Book of the Year in 2015. Her second book, Ottoman Odyssey, was shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award in 2019. Her third book was Power & the People, written with Andronike Makres.

Alev writes for numerous publications, including the Financial Times, Guardian, Newsweek, Harper’s Magazine, Politico Europe, New Statesman, Prospect, the BBC, Huffington Post, The Times, Sunday Times, New Humanist, the Los Angeles Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement.