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these women displayed different inclinations in terms of political and ideological positions, they were
all products of the modernization and westernization process, and this characteristic they had in
common is revealed in their autobiographies. It is understood from their autobiographies that, in
spite of the differences in their approach to the Republican ideology, these pioneering women share
a common goal, namely that they have a clear aspiration to be useful to the society and to the
country. This was in compliance with the mission that Republican ideology demanded from women.
However in the last two decades new autobiographies which deviate from the old tradition have
appeared. Not only eminent women of the society, but the ones from less advantageous segments
started to write their testimonies. Nowadays the themes and tendencies in autobiographical writing
have also diversified as women began to write more about their individual, emotional and private
affairs. Among these recent publications, the autobiographical narrative conversation, Bir Dönem İki
Kadın: Birbirimizin Aynasında (One Era Two Women: In Each Other’s Mirror), of two eminent women
Oya Baydar and Melek Ulagay is worth a lengthy discussion. While recollecting their individual
memories, these two women illustrate the political and socio‐cultural life they witnessed and actively
took part in since the late 1960s. As political activists of the 1970s and 1980s, while providing a
political and intellectual panorama of the period in Turkey, they both attempt to reveal the intricate
oppression women experience which is inherent in modern nation state and try to unmask the
intrinsic veiled male hegemony of the leftist political struggle.
One Era Two Women: in Each Other’s Mirror by Oya Baydar and Melek Ulagay is structured as a
biographical interview. However, it differs from other biographical interviews in one crucial aspect.
Biographical interviews are built around a long conversation with the person whose life story is to be
the centre of the narrative. There is a person who asks the questions, and another who reconstructs
her/his life through answers to these questions. The active party who drives the narrative forward
and attracts the readers’ attention is the subject of the narrative. Although the person who asks the
questions seems to lead the conversations, s/he neither carries the weight of the conversation nor
contributes to the narrative equally. The narrative power belongs to the subject. Oya Baydar and
Melek Ulagay’s narrative interview differs from others at exactly this point. As far as I know, it is the
first within this genre. Here, the conversation is not between an intermediary author and the subject,
but between two subjects. The narratives of two women evolve side by side, parallel to each other.
The conversation becomes a text through the writings of both authors. In biographical interviews
where the subject answers the questions of the intermediary author, s/he may have the unsettling
feeling that s/he does not entirely control the text that emerges from the conversation. The
‘textualized’ identity of the subject may not correspond to the self‐perceived identity in the subject’s
mind. The way the conversation is turned into text in this book avoids such a pitfall.
The innovation we encounter in this book is not confined only to the technique used in execution
of the interview. The power over the text is shared by the authors. The complementary stories of two
equally situated women enable us to look at the era they live in through two different perspectives.
Hence, the reader experiences the two texts and the two life stories simultaneously.
A common occurrence in autobiographical narratives is to start with a family history. Starting with
the environment that shaped his/her identity, the narrator talks about school years, and the years in
which the identity s/he decided to turn into a narrative begins to take form. It is the same in this
instance. Although their main aim is to talk about their political pasts, both authors talk about their
private lives in order to set the background, and not only give the narrative a strong sense of reality
and vividness but also balance the private and public dimensions.