‘I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.’
James Baldwin
James Baldwin (1924-1987) in Istanbul – photo was taken by his friend Sedat Pakay
I came across James Baldwin at an exhibition in the Pera Museum years ago. Although I had studied American literature extensively, here was a writer I had never heard of. I wanted to learn who this American writer was and how he was linked to an exhibition in Istanbul in the 21st century.
After an extensive research, I learnt that James Baldwin was an American writer who was also an activist in the Black Movement. Being a black gay man, he had spent his whole life fighting for freedom and equality in 1950s America. Baldwin’s home country of the 1950s was racist and homophobic leaving no room for him to breathe and create.
After a life full of challenges and traumas in America, he had found solace in Istanbul for a decade. between 1961 and 1971. These were politically turbulent times for Turkey, but for Baldwin, Istanbul was a refuge where he could be himself and create.
His friends were the leading intellectuals of the time, many whom have recently passed away such as actor Engin Cezzar and his wife actress Gulriz Sururi, famous writer Yasar Kemal and art critic Zeynep Oral.
Engin Cezzar, Gulriz Sururi and James Baldwin in Istanbul
He told Yasar Kemal once that he felt so free in Turkey and Yasar Kemal replied: ‘That is because you are an American.‘
Turkish writer Yasar Kemal with James Baldwin – photo was taken by the Turkish photographer Ara Guler
He became the ‘Arab Jimmy’ of his Turkish friends, accepted and loved. He also found a safe ‘home’ in Istanbul where he could create. He completed his novel ‘Another Country’ and his essays which were later printed under the title ‘No Name in the Street’ in Istanbul. He directed a play about the prison life in Turkey and assisted his friends with the production of the famous musical ‘Hair’. He had legendary parties where his Turkish friends would accompany him. He was even visited by American friends such as Marlon Brando in Istanbul.
James Baldwin studying in his home in Istanbul – photo was taken by his friend Sedat Pakay
Marlon Brando and James Baldwin in Istanbul, 1967
He loved travelling across the city visiting secret corners but he never truly became a ‘local’. He always stayed as the expatriate never learning the language and keeping a distance from local politics.
a scene from a short film about James Baldwin made by his Turkish friend Sedat Pakay in 1973
the film was screened in the NY Film Festival in 2021. “Pakay’s little-known cinematic gem records the writer’s movements through the city of Istanbul over a three-day period in May 1970 and frames Baldwin’s assertion with seductive photography of private interiors, city streets, and a boat ride on the Bosporus. Like no other existing documentary, the black-and-white film captures the profound paradox of Baldwin’s transatlantic vantage point by showing how he both belongs and remains an outsider in the teeming half-European, half-Asian Turkish metropolis,” wrote film scholar Magdalena Zaborowska in her 2009 book, James Baldwin′s Turkish Decade: Erotics of Exile.
He lived in Gumussuyu and then in Rumeli Hisari close to Robert College.
James Baldwin in Istanbul – photo was taken by his friend Sedat Pakay
The mansion he stayed after 1966 belonged to an Ottoman intellectual called Ahmed Vefik Paşa but it is such as pity that there are no traces of the ‘Arab Jimmy’ in any of the buildings he stayed.
James Baldwin’s refuge in Rumeli Hisari where he would host guests
James Baldwin spent the last years of his life in France and passed away in 1987.
James Baldwin’s America has changed dramatically over the years as his visions for his homeland have partially been realized. But so has the Istanbul and Turkey he lived. Ironically now, many people in my homeland who want to flee racism and homophobia are seeking refuge in his home country.
And let me leave the final words to James Baldwin: ‘One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.’
Raoul Peck’s ‘I am not Your Negro’ based on the unfinished book of James Baldwin ‘Remember This House’ was shown in Istanbul Film Festival in 2017.
