And im going to be talking to you about my book today, the esthetic cold war, decolonization and, global literature. I want to thank the Commonwealth Institute of black studies for this event. Possible today. My project is about effect of the cold war, especially the effect of the competition between the United States and the soviet union on the literatures and the intellectual development of writing in the decolonizing world what was then called the third world is now called sometimes the developing world or the global south. So there have been lots of studies of cold war literature, most of them have focused on what happened in the United States and the soviet union, but as i started to do my research on this, i learned that the u. S. And soviet union in the competition between them had an incredible effect on Literary Development in other parts of the world, especially africa, asia and the caribbean, which were the focus of this book. Now of offering a sort of general overview and somatic instead of reading novels and plays and thinking about what is the effect of ideological competition . Cold war in places in the south. I decided in this book that i wanted to focus on two of the mechanism arms in which large states got involved directly in literary competition in the global south. The first of those areas is in what i call cold war cultural diplomacy. The united and soviet union sponsored libraries. They sponsored music tours. They sponsored cultural events, they sponsored museums, they sponsored book publications schemes and book distribution. They sponsored International Conferences. Most of all. And what i talk about at great length in this book is their sponsorship of magazineshat targeted writers and targeted audiences, whats now called the global south. This is a brief snippet of some of the magazines that i look at in this project. If you look the the top left of th slidesee black orpheus, this is a magazine that was founded in ibadan, nigeria, in the 1950s. And it was ultimatelsponsored by the congress for cultural freedom, which we learned in 1966, in 1867 was a cia front below that on the left is transition magazine, the editor of which was rajan georgi, a ugandan indian. This is probably the best known of the literary and political magazines that came out africa ring the sixes. Some of you may know it because this magazine was revived by henry louigates at harvard and. Its still running now. So if you look up on project muse or whoever it is that that that carries the magazine, you can find editions of transition and going all the way back to the first one in 1961 or thereabouts, 2 to 2. The magazines current day operations also by the cia, covertly congress for cultural freedom. Ill talk a little bit about them in a minute. In the bottom left of this, youll see another congress for cultural freedom magazine. They were a big operation in the 1960s. This was encounter, which was based in. London. Thprimary audiences were anglo american, but it had a huge impact on Literary Developments in africa. Top of that slide, youll see one of the many magazine ins sponsored by the u. S. State departme called world. This was produced out of hong kong and distributed throughout the chinese diaspora in the fifties and sixties. So the the wter that i talk about that that published some of her most interesting stuff in world today is chang, who who left china in the 1950s and ultimately resettled in the United States. The last magazine that ill point out to you on this slide probably the most successful and certainly the most durable of ese magazines was lotus writings. This sponsored by the soviet union throughout its period. Its its full print run. So you can see that magazis were one areaf competition between the u. S. And soviet unn. One of the things that ive poind out, point out, lotu that was unusual was also a tri lingual magazine and it was published simultaneously in arabic in english and in french. And it had a circulation that ranged between five and 10,000 magazines per. Issue was published out of cairo by the by minister of culture, yusuf elsayed by the editor. So cultural diplomacy. Ill talk a lot more that in this talk but this gives you a quick overview of some of the forms of competition that took place in the world of publishing, arts and letters between the and soviet union in the decolonizing world, the part of this project, if the cultural diplomacy part of the project we might think of, is the carrot that was dangled in front of african and asian writers, was the stick write the u. S. And soviet union, both tried to influence the development and of arts and letters in the decolonizing world through state intervention intelligence agencies, putting wters in jail, deporting them, censoring their work, depriving them of citizensp, and oning monitoring and intelligence files on those writers, some for decades. Right. And these are just some the writers that i talk about in projt. There were a wide of writers from whats now call the global south that were spied up by one or more governments. And if you read the book, youll see that actually a t of these writers show up in both parts of the narrative thai tell write, these are writers who enjoyed state patronage in certain contexts. And tn were the people who were punished by large states in other contexts. You can see on this slide, two of africas Nobel Laureates arent that many of them. Right. Voice showing on the left who wrote a great, amazing prison memoir, e man died that i talked about extensively in the book. He spe almost two years in in solitary. Well, not all of it in solitary, but a significant part of it in solitary in nigeria. Dos lessing, anoth Nobel Laureate from africa, was spied upon by mi5 five for nearly two decades. And she knew it. She talked about it extensively in her writings. She was aware of it and they made sure that she knew she was under observation. Alex laguna, the figure in the center, was exiled from south africa. He spent the better part of ten years either jail or under house arrest. He was harassed by the Intelligence Services for much of his adult life while he was living in south africa. Nuala saadawi the great egyptian medical doctor and feminist, spent time in an egyptian prison. She also wrote about h experiences as didnt give you what yongle of the great kenyan writer who spent time about year in detention in kenya. The bottom rht of this slide, Claudia Jones and claude james talk abouthem a little bit later in my discussion. Theyre both from the island of trinidad in the caribbean ty both spent time in england, as well as in the United States. They were both deported from the United States. Both have very extensive fbi les that i looked at and somewhat more slender but sutantial mi5 that were collected on during their time in england. The bottom center, youll note mo krishnan the great indian writer hes pictured here at the 1958 tashkent meeting of the african asiaWriters Association. Next to him is w. E. B. Dubois, the great African American political theorist writer who was denied a passport for many years in the unitedtates. His passport was reinstated, interestingly enough, in time for him to attend the first meeting of the afroasian Writers Association. This is the group that sponsors the lotus magazine. Their first meeting was in tashkent in the soviet union in 1958, and dubois was rajat new jersey, the editor of transition. He also spent time in detention in uganda before coming to the us. Sajjad zahir, the indian and pakistan senior writer, an intellectual and and more crushing on these are two of the earliest figures who up in the intelligence files that i examined, they were being tracked by british and Indian Security servicesuring, the colonial period. Well, back into the 1930s. So monitoring of writers is something that happened over a very extensive period of many writers had dealings with state agencies through cultural diplomacy efforts. But many of these same writers were the victim, if you like, of state apparatus that tracked their movements, monitored their work. So let me turn now tell you a little bit more about what i do with cultural diplomacy in this project. And ill start that by giving you a little bit of an anecdote about how i got started on this research in the early 2000s, between about 2005 and 2010, i was working on a book project that to do primarily with connections between white metropolitan british writers and their counterpart parts from the decolonizing world. And i was especially interested in a bbc Radio Program called caribbean voices that hosted black and other writers of color from the caribbean, alongside some of their White British counterparts. And i was at the Harry Ransom Center in texas doing some Archival Research for this project. And whenever i go to archival work, i like to describe what im doing to the librarians and archivists because they always know stuff. They know stuff that i dont know and they know more about their own holdings than i do. So i was describing my work on my interest in bbc to an archivist and she said to me, okay, youve got to talk to one of my colleagues. This guy called bob taylor. She made an appointment with me to meet with him the next day i show up to the meeting and bob sits me down and says, have you heard of the center . I heard that doing this work on bbc radio and this program called caribbean voices. Have you heard of the Transcription Center said not ringing any bells, man. I dont know. I have no idea what youre talking about, he said. Okay, well, during the 1960s, in london, there was this bbc producer called dennis durden who had a recording studio, and he invented this thing or started this thing called the Transcription Center. And they brought in all of the emerging african writing talon out of the 1960s when they passed through london. So they did interviews with yinka nkosi. He killed pele. She Chinua Achebe, the whole alex the broom, the whole 1960s generation of writers said, boy, that sounds really fascinating. Im going to im going to check it out as soon as im done writing this, this, this other book that im working on and he said, okay, just wanted to make sure youre aware of it. Weve got all the stuff here at the Harry Ransom Center, and we were sort of getting it to lead. He sort of said with a twinkle in his eye. I said, oh, i almost forgot to tell you. I said, oh, he the Transcription Center was covertly funded by the cia cia. Now he had my attention. I said, why . On earth was the cia in 1962,. 63 supporting an outfit that was recording programs with voice, ink and other luminaries from that generation and distributing them around the world . I just it didnt make any to me. And he said, thats where my job ends and your job begins, right . You need to find out what the cia was doing backing a program this and you need to make that story known. So thats kind of how my research started. I pulled some files that very afternoon. This was a an archive that had been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center, but hadnt even been cataloged yet. I just said, you know, bring me some boxes. And i started looking. This document is one of the earliest spocks documents that i found in my searches. This is a program from, the 1962. Its called the embalming conference, but it was also called the African Writers of expression conference at mclaren university in kampala, uganda and its got a list of participants all in large this in a second to show you some the major figures who were at this conference. So i knew the first time i saw this roster of attendees that these are all people who had accepted money, at least indirect, from the cia. Interesting. Now, when conference happened, they should point out that cia sponsorship was covert. They did not say, hey, the cia is sponsoring. It was sponsored by an Organization Called the congress for cultural freedom. But i should point that the congress for cultural freedom made absolutely no bones, its ideological orientation. Right in their manifesto was published in 1950. They say things like totalitarianism of the kind practiced by the soviet union is is the greatest threat to mankind. And since the stone age, for instance, perhaps exaggerated. But my point is that the ideological orientation of the congress for cultural freedom was no secret, even if the funding was secret. Heres a up. I dont know how well youll be able to read it. So i highlighted a few names of figures who showed up at the 1962 conference. Theres one in the bottom corner there. Ralph ellison, the great africanamerican novelist and essayist. We dont think actually attended the conference. But he was invited. He was on the program. He may have run into complications. I dont know. But if you look at the rest of this document, especially the top half of it, youll see that the whole generation of 1960s anglophone writers is there from Chinua Achebe dennis durden, the guy who directed it the Transcription Center that i talked about a moment ago was there, alex lagoon and well talk about in a moment was fresh off the publication of a walk in the night he was he was he was invited also another no show because he was in detention the south african authorities would not let him leave the country. Christopher akiba oh the great nigerian poet who sadly died in the civil war in nigeria a few years later was there. Lewis. In kochi in gujarat. Tongo he known as james in googie, was there. Ezekiel or esquire . Pele, the great south African Writer, was in many ways the de facto host of the event. He was the brainchild of it. He was working for the congress for cultural freedom at this time. V. S. Naipaul happened to be doing a fellowship in u. South africa at the time, and he was there, as was langston hughes, who was kind of the presiding luminary, the guest of honor at the at the conference. So when i saw this document, a narrative, again, its very early on in my research. In my research, a narrative started to form in my mind right. Okay. What we have here, front of us, in front of me, time is a is a kind of stable of writers who had taken patronage from an anti totalitarian organization. And we can already see writers lining up and taking sides in this cold war. At least this is what i thought i saw when i saw this document. Heres a picture of Chinua Achebe at that 1962 conference. And im forming in my mind this group of writers who became partizs of the us and advocates of some kind of anti totalitariangenda. I should point out briefly while im on this slide, ngress for cultural freedom was unmasked as a as as a cia backed organization. And in 1966, 67, it started in 49, 50 aftermath of worlwar two and ran until about 19 oh 67. And they wer extremely active throughout the decolonizing world. So theres a choubey and a bunch of other people that i wont mention here at that. And then a couple of years later, i started turning my attention to the afroasian Writers Association, the counterpart of, the congress for cultural freedom, the competing organization of the congress for cultural freedom, their magazine was called lotus the prize. They awarded grand prize tt they awarded to literary figures was the lotus prize. And here you can see chinua ache awarded the lotus prize. And i thought, like all scholars do. Resting. This is an anomaly. Righ and im going to put brackets around it and im going to put it im going tot over here. Im going to dea it later. Im not going to, like, suppress it because that would be, you know, something you dont want do. But humanists love anomalies. We love interesting, weird this is one of them. Ill deal with later. Alex laguna, the great south African Writer who could not attendhe 1962 democratic conference, was an import figure there. His his first novella, a walk in published by embrey publisher. Was started inbadan, nigeria, and it was close affiliated with the congress for cultural freedom. They took congress for cultural freedom and a walk in the night wa centerpiece at the 1962 mcclearyonference of the fiction discussions, they broke the conference up into some fiction paneme poetry panels and some drama and a walk in the nht gunman though he couldnt be there, was the centerpiece of those discussions. Fast forward to 1973 and here youll see a picture of alex lagunat e savoy it affiliated afro Asian Writer Association meeting. Hes actually awarded the lotus prize, one of the first lotus prizes in 1969. Hes he looksikhes strang going to be seen the great frenchalgerian it, but hes actually congratulating khattab yassine on his own lotus prize. This is suelsayedy the egyptian writer and minister of culture in during the senties during sadats regime regime. Yusef alsabah was the Founding Editor of lotus magazine. Alex laguna went on to edit the magazine for a time and. He also became the general secretary of the afroasian Writers Association, the chief executive, if you like, of the effort. Afroasian writers, sessions so that the brackets that had pushed way over here are now kind of sitting on shoulder a little bit. Right. Chinua achebe is shown up as a figure at both events. Alex guma has shown up as a figure at us, sponsored events and soviet sponsored events. Im starting to think, okay, this more than an anomaly, i might need to deal it. This is a picture of sambo in whose mind . The great senegalese novelist and filmmaker ive never i dont know if anybody else has, but ive never seen a picture of without a pipe. You let me know if you find one. But if you ever see a photograph of a senegalese guy in, you know, traditional dress, we might call it smoking a pipe chances are its sembene is mine ri