GLR May-June 2026

INTERVIEW

İ pek Ş ahinler chats with James Baldwin’s longtime confidant

Baldwin in Turkey, Directing a Play

Z EYNEP O RAL

E DITOR ’ S N OTE : This interview is part of a research project by İ pek Ş ahinler, a grant recipient in a program launched in 2022 by TheG&LR , the Charles S. Longcope Jr. Writers and Artists Grant, which was awarded to three recipients in 2025. Awardees are expected to contribute an article to this magazine as part of their project, of which this is the second of three. Z EYNEP ORAL SERVED as James Baldwin’s per sonal assistant and translator during Baldwin’s “Turkish decade,” between 1960 and 1971. As someone who remains one of the last living wit nesses to this period, Oral offers rare insights into Baldwin’s life abroad. Particularly significant is Baldwin’s direction of Fortune and Men’s Eyes , a play by John Herbert that he staged without speaking Turkish. The play was later banned for its transgressive themes and queer content. Ironically, the police were so intrigued that a performance was held exclusively for the officers who had come to shut it down. Baldwin’s decision to relocate to Turkey was deeply tied to his friendship with the actor Engin Cezzar, whom he met in New York. Originally cast in a never-realized Broadway adaptation of Giovanni’s Room , Cezzar became a key figure in Baldwin’s time in Istanbul. In October 1961, while on assignment in Israel and Africa, Baldwin stopped in Istanbul and stayed with Cezzar and his wife, actress Gülriz Sururi. Their home provided Bald win a refuge where he continued work on Another Country .He later described Istanbul’s multilingual and multiethnic envi ronment as a rare space of peace, reminiscent of Harlem, of fering him a sense of belonging he struggled to find in the U.S. Over time, Baldwin moved to a waterfront mansion once owned by Ottoman statesman Ahmed Vefik Pa ş a and later settled near the historic Rumeli Hisarı fortress. These homes became gath ering places for intellectuals and artists, including Marlon Brando, Alex Haley, and Beauford Delaney. During his years in Turkey, Baldwin wrote and revised some of his most significant works, including Another Country , The Fire Next Time , Blues for Mister Charlie , Going to Meet the Man , Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone , One Day, When I Was Lost , and No Name in the Street . I spoke to Zeynep Oral in Istanbul last summer. — İ . Ş . İ pek Ş ahinler: How did your journey with Baldwin begin, and how did you first meet him? Zeynep Oral: I met Jimmy Baldwin in 1967. Of course, I knew about his books and I had read some of them. But my real ac İ pek Ş ahinler is a doctoral candidate in comparative literature at the University of Texas at Austin.

quaintance with his work started when I was a student in Paris. I fell in love with his novel The Fire Next Time . It had just been translated into French, long before it was translated into Turk ish. That book really opened a very serious path in front of me. When I heard that Jimmy was here in Turkey, I was already working as a journalist in Istanbul. I immediately reached out to the people in charge and let them know I wanted to interview him. … We met at the Ahmet Vefik Pa ş a Kütüphanesi, which is a wonderful library overlooking the Bosporus, which then be longed to Bo ğ aziçi University. I had studied my lesson, and we had a wonderful chat for an hour or two. I was very happy with my questions, and he was very happy with his answers. We said goodbye to each other, I went to the newspaper and immedi ately wrote my article, which then went into print. That same night, my husband and I went out to celebrate the interview. It was early September and we were at a nightclub. There we saw Baldwin with Gülriz Sururi and Engin Cezzar, who were all very close friends. We joined them as a person was singing American jazz songs. I was seated right next to Jimmy Baldwin, and just to start a conversation, I said to him: “Doesn’t he sing wonderfully?” At this moment, he stopped, looked at me, and said: “What? How dare you say that this is nice? He’s killing my music.” He got up, held my throat. I thought he was going to strangle me. He was furious and shout ing. I was so shocked and frightened. Engin, Gülriz, and my husband were trying to save me. His face had turned completely blue. I could see his volcano-like eyes. As I was leaving the table, he was shouting after me, saying: “I forbid you to write anything about me. I don’t trust you as a person, as a woman, and as a journalist.” İŞ : I guess the piece was already on its way to print by that time of the day. ZO: Absolutely. I had submitted it early that day. So I was so frightened about what would happen. The next morning, noth ing. Silence. In the afternoon, I hear the doorbell ring, open the door, and see 25 red roses with a small note from Baldwin. The note said: “I’m very sorry for last night. Please excuse me. They translated your article to me. I loved it. Thank you so much.” That was it. I thought I was never going to see him again. İŞ : But then you got to know each other more and more throughout the years in which Baldwin lived in Turkey inter mittently. Was this period roughly between 1960 and 1971? ZO: Yes, he was in Turkey on and off around those times. When he returned to Istanbul in 1968, one evening Gülriz and Engin called me and said: “Listen, Jimmy is here with us, and he wants to talk to you.” I first thought: “Good god, not again!” but then I

TheG & LR

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