Istanbul’s community enabled Baldwin to finish Another Country

Evidence

By the end of 1961, Istanbul and the community Baldwin found there, which included Engin, the journalist Zeynep Oral, film and theater actor Ali Poyrazoğlu, and the African American singer Bertice Reading, just to name a few, enabled him to finish Another Country. Less than two years later, with the publication of The Fire Next Time, Baldwin would become that famous American writer, known throughout the world. He was a long way from the letter he wrote to Engin in November 1957: “One of these days, I’m going to build myself a place to live and work at the side of a mountain or at the edge of the sea.” — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 391