John W Baker

John W. Baker spent his formative years living in Istanbul due to his father's posting, and was educated at the English High School for Boys there. Following in his father's footsteps, he had a career with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Lodon until he took early retirement to live in Turkey again. He is honored to have been the first British writer to have written a play in Turkish, Ihtiras (Passion), which was produced in 2003 by Gencay Gurun and was voted one of the best five new plays that year. The success of Ihtiras led to favorable publicity resulting in Baker being asked by Ayşe Kulin to translate two of her novels, Last Train to Istanbul (Nefes nefese) and Face to Face (Bir gun).

Other translations followed, including Theodora, by Radi Dikici, about the Byzantine empress, and most recently, Unfulfilled Promises, by Leyla Yildirim, a love story set during the Battle of Gallipoli.

Baker returned to live in England in 2010 and is now happy to be back living in London again and doing the occasional translation.