The story
The first fragrances by 1925 GLEN NORAH look back to Zimbabwe’s liberation movement, 1968 to 1980: a time of change and courage that caught the attention of artists around the world, among them Miles Davis, Bob Marley and James Baldwin.
“18 Rue de Tournon” follows Baldwin, from a book about the war to a café in Paris.
I
We Are Everywhere
James Baldwin wrote the introduction to Michael Raeburn’s Black Fire! Accounts of the Guerrilla War in Rhodesia (1978), also published as We Are Everywhere: Narratives from Rhodesian Guerillas. Its stories are fiction, drawn from true events.
One of them is set on the Altena tobacco farm, where a Shona spirit medium gave the guerrilla forces the location of a strategic strike point: a turning point in Zimbabwe’s liberation movement.
Rhodesia Countdown (1969), Michael Raeburn’s first film. It led to his exile from Zimbabwe.
Rue de Tournon, Paris 6e.
II
Café Tournon
Baldwin wrote it in France, where he had found solace and inspiration. In Paris he spent his time in cafés such as Café Tournon, at 18 Rue de Tournon.
After the war, the café became a meeting place for African American expatriates, artists, writers and intellectuals. Over coffee and the smoke of Gauloises and Gitanes, conversations turned into debates, and debates into work that shifted culture.
James Baldwin in Postcard for the 61st Venice Biennale: Michael Raeburn on writing a screenplay of Giovanni’s Room with him, Café le Tournon, “A Lover’s Question” with its St Martin’s Press galleys, and the pages on Black Fire.
III
Tobacco
Tobacco was Zimbabwe’s largest export at the time, and a frequent catalyst for conversation at Café Tournon.
It is the thread that runs from the farm in the book to the tables in Paris, and it sits at the heart of the fragrance.
Bearden Plays Bearden (1980), directed by Nelson E. Breen: Romare Bearden, James Baldwin, Alvin Ailey and Albert Murray talk about Paris.
IV
The fragrance
“18 Rue de Tournon” opens with honey, mango and pineapple, a homage to the fruits of the land. Its heart is tobacco, connecting the book, Baldwin and the liberation movement. It settles into musk, a hint of the primal instincts of the guerrilla fighters.
Objects and ephemera
Sources
- The Fall of Rhodesia. Popular Social Science
- Michael Raeburn, Black Fire! Accounts of the Guerrilla War in Rhodesia / We Are Everywhere: Narratives from Rhodesian Guerillas, with an introduction by James Baldwin (London: Julian Friedmann; New York: Random House, 1978)
- Percy Zvomuya, “James Baldwin in Rhodesia”. Johannesburg Review of Books
- “James Baldwin’s Paris”. The New York Times
- “Chez Tournon: A Homage”. The New York Times
- Conversation with Alvin Ailey, James Baldwin and Albert Murray. Films Media Group
- Zimbabwe’s main exports. Trading Economics
- Tobacco in Zimbabwe. Wikipedia