"A Turk Named O'Brien": Bedtime Stories of the Early Turkish Republic from the Memoirs of Sevim Sertel O'Brien

Abstract:This article examines the unpublished memoirs of Sevim Sertel O'Brien, a journalist and daughter of prominent journalists and intellectuals Sabiha and Zekeriya Sertel. The memoirs, written in English and told as bedtime stories to O'Brien's Turkish-American children in the 1950s and 1960s, provide a unique lens on the early history of the Turkish republic and offer a new way of thinking about the memory of and nostalgia for this period that contrasts from memoirs of both state-centered elites and prominent dissidents. The article argues that the memoirs can be used as a way to reconsider the function of nostalgic remembrances of this period amongst Turkish immigrants and exiles, and as an example of how harsh experiences of this period were softened in the search for a usable past.