Şükran, my dear confidante

“My dear Şükran, I have been devastated since I heard of your death,” the author writes, beginning a personal farewell to a longtime colleague and confidante. She says the news made her think about her own death for the first time.

Memories return to the old newsroom in Cağaloğlu, where the two women sat at neighboring desks and typewriters clattered constantly. Editors, essayists, poets and writers worked nearby, whispering gossip as they corrected copy. At lunchtime, senior editors Oktay Kurtböke and later Hasan Cemal would come down for Şükran’s Bosnian pastries.

Şükran would arrive with a tray after rising early to prepare the pastries. The newsroom would gather around, and on the rare days she brought none, everyone looked at her like a student who had failed to do an assignment. Uğur Mumcu, when he came to Istanbul, would call from the doorway, “Bring out the pastries!”

The author also remembers a time when few women worked at the newspaper and female camera operators were rare. After a young intern was sent to cover a story in clothing that drew attention on television, editor Oktay reportedly came in furious the next morning and ordered the newsroom to be present every Sunday.

Times changed, the author says, but Şükran did not. She always had a cardigan ready to put on before rushing out to cover the news. She was “the workers’ Şükran sister,” the author writes, and one of the few people she knew who believed so stubbornly in better days and worked so hard to bring them closer. The memories of newsroom jokes and warm moments, she adds, mattered because reporting often felt as if it took a piece of their lives.

“

Bring out the pastries!