Face: 1981

In his next novel, Yüz: 1981 (2000, Face: 1981), Eroğlu focuses on the apolitical and inactive generation of 1980s. The plot begins as people looking at youthful pictures of the nameless protagonist, a successful broker who was born in 1965, can find no resemblance to his present adult appearance. He himself recognizes the change he has gone through from 1981 to 2000. Although he did not kill anybody, he took no action when innocent people were killed during his military service. He has continued this state of inaction after his military duty and fails to connect with the women who enter his life with their emotions and ideals. He avoids suffering through his escapism. The protagonist is an antihero who accepts the events of the military intervention without questioning. In this respect, the turning point in the novel is the coup of 12 September 1980, the date he succumbed to mediocrity. This novel marks a transition in Eroğlu’s literary career, as henceforward he examines the post–1980 era in his fiction.