This project focuses on three revolutionary writers from the Afro-Asian Writers' Association who had cultural exchanges with the USSR. Alex la Guma, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and Ousmane Sembène, all dedicated their lives to reconstructing the discourse of their countries.
The Afro-Asian Writers' Association was the Soviet Union's connection to "third world" literature. It allowed the U.S.S.R to form a connection with both African and Asian post-colonial nations. Through this association, the works of African and Asian writers were given appreciation and publicity. This was an amazing opportunity for the groundbreaking authors of this time period.
The Afro-Asian Writers' Conference was a big step in uplifting the unity of people from Africa and people on the continent of Asia. The first conference was held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1958. The remaining seven were held in Cairo (1962), Beirut (1967), New Delhi (1970), Alma Ata (1973), Luanda (1979), Tashkent (1983), and Tunis (1988).
From left to right: Alex La Guma, Anatoly Sofronov, Rasul Gamzatov, and Chinghiz Aitmatov at the 1973 Conference
From left to right: W. E. B. DuBois, Shirley Graham DuBois, Majhemout Diop, Zhou Yang and Mao Dun at the very first Afro-Asian Writers' Conference in 1958.
The Lotus prize for literature was presented to the authors of the Afro-Asian Writers' association. The Association had its own magazine called the Lotus, which distributed the award to the winner. The Lotus Literary Prize was modeled after the World Peace Council’s Lenin Peace Prize. This prize was first given to Alex La Guma in 1969 to begin the annual distribution.
Like his father, Jimmy La Guma, Alex became a member of the Communist Party in South Africa in 1947. Alex recalled his father being fully immersed in the trade union and political work, while his mother worked at a cigarette factory.
Alex La Guma's French and Malagasy ethnic background classified him as colored in South Africa. This meant that he was multiracial and felt the burdens of racism from both the black and white populations in South Africa.
La Guma's appreciation of the Communist Party sprouted from his parents' participation, but also from the acceptance of all communities that the Communist Party promotes.
His progressive reporting and activism caused him to be on trial for treason in 1956 and exiled in 1966. From 1966 until 1979, La Guma and his family lived in London. In 1966, he began working for the African National Congress and traveled to different communist countries as a representative.
Alex La Guma was the first recipient of the Lotus Prize for literature in 1969. His work was admired by many because of his ability to portray the harsh realities of people living within oppressed and marginalized groups.
La Guma's writing is inspired by the conditions the people in his community were facing. His writing exposed the harsh systematic racism people of color were forced to endure during apartheid in South Africa.
In 1978, Alex La Guma traveled through the Soviet Union to see the differences in the communism they practiced compared to other countries.
La Guma helped the U.S.S.R. gain popularity. His travel account, A Soviet Journey, romanticized the Soviet Union's communist government. In the account, La Guma discusses his time in Siberia. The Communism he describes in Siberia urges other socially discriminated groups to adopt the Communist political model. La Guma notes the inclusivity of their native culture into the socialist ideas and the Siberian's willingness to adapt.
La Guma describes the Soviet Union as a political model and praises its diversity. He also discussed his desire for South Africa to amount to the Soviet Union's success.
"I don't think that there should be any contradiction between politics, that is, the peoples ' struggle to attain a higher level of social living, and literature, because both are complementary. [...] the individual does not exist isolated from his community, and the interests of the community exert their influence on him" (La Guma,1981b:9-10).
In 1979, Alex La Guma began spending his remaining years serving as the ANC's Chief Representative in Central and Latin America. On October 11, 1985, La Guma passed away in Havana, Cuba from a heart attack.
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, original name James Thiong'o Ngugi, (born January 5, 1938, Limuru, Kenya), was a Kenyan writer who was considered East Africa's leading novelist.
In 1967, Ngiugi first received the Joma Kenyatta Prize for literature. This award was given to recognize great Kenyan writers and playwrights.
Ngugi was one of the selected winners of the Lotus prize for literature. This prize was presented annually to African and Asian authors by the Afro-Asian Writers’ association. In 1973 he was the sixth candidate to have received a prize since the award was first introduced.
Ngugi would often speak about the Cold War because it allowed him to focus on a global conflict that he lived through. Using both vague and bold references, Ngugi was able to discuss how this war coincided with the internal war in his head between his culture and his beliefs.
"Ngũgĩ’s choice of genre in Petals of Blood (historical novel in the socialist realist vein, at the expense of a discredited detective style of novel) speaks to the cultural solidarities Ngũgĩ forged across the Iron Curtain fault lines."
Decolonization is the action or process of a state withdrawing from a former colony, leaving it independent. Ngugi used his book ‘decolonizing the mind’ (a collection of essays) to discuss how he combatted the hardship he faced in his home country.
Ngugi describes his book decolonizing the mind as, ""a summary of some of the issues in which I have been passionately involved for the last twenty years of my practice in fiction, theatre, criticism, and in teaching of literature".
the book is a "continuing debate … about the destiny of Africa" and language's role in both combatting and perpetrating imperialism and the conditions of neocolonialism in African nations. The book is also Ngũgĩ's "farewell to English," and it addresses the "language problem" faced by African authors, hence the book being written in Kikuyu.
Ngũgĩ was able to gain great recognition in the Soviet Union for many of the plays he wrote that he was not able to showcase in Africa.
The Soviet Union was ultimately a safe haven for Ngũgĩ during the time of his studies and during the showcase of his literary works.
Ngugi was present in Russia in 1973 when he was presented with the lotus prize for literature. Although this was before his imprisoonment, Ngugi was aware that there was more opportunity for him in Russia. However, since his family remained in Africa, he packed his achievements and attempted to share them with his home country.
Ngugi was a firm believer in imagination, a concept that his home country did not understand. His resistance of normality is what allowed him to prosper once he reached the U.S.S.R.
The difficulty that he faced in his home country did not deter him from reaching his goals and he kept an optimistic attitude as he continued to write plays on topics that he found interest in.
Ngugi was taken from his home in Africa away from his wife and kids in January of 1978. The regulations that Ngugi was taken under were in sync with the laws of almost every African country. Ngugi’s views simply did not coincide with the country’s laws. He was accused of polluting Africa’s beliefs with plays like ‘Ngahlika Ndenda’ that were banned in the country.
Ngugi was jailed without trial for a year in 1978 and as his prison memoir is reissued, he discusses the need to resist injustice
After Ngugi was released from prison him and his family were forced to live in exile in London. While in exile, Ngugi continued to study the art of filming at Dramatiska Institutet.
"The Perfect Nine" is Ngugi's latest published book (2018), and it discusses the injustice and corruption of his home country. Through this book he tells his story and also tackles the absurdities of Kenya. This is a very inspirational read that uplifts and encourages people from all backgrounds. This book was not written to show his home country in a negative light, but rather to inform readers on the accomadations that prevented him of thriving there.
From him being an author, playwright, and philanthropist, to him escaping murder from the president of his country, he is an important name in Afro-Asian solidarity. Incredibly, Ngugi is still alive and well today at 82 years of age.
“... for I had reached a point in my life when I came to view words differently. A closer look at language could reveal the secret of life.”
Born in 1923 in Casamance, Southern Senegal, his work often hinted to his life there. worked as a mason, carpenter, mechanic, dock worker, union organizer, and had also served as a sharpshooter in the French colonial army during the Second World War (Pfaff). After he suffered a backbone injury, his recovery enabled him to work on his intellectual career.
Ousmane Sembene began his artistic career as a poet, a short story writer, an essayist and a novelist. His first published work was Liberté (1956), a long poem in which after an extended panegyric on the a vast inventory of human accomplishment in the area of art, the poet also launched into a heartbreaking lament over his estrangement from universal beauty.
Sembene's travels in the Soviet Union also exposed him to the theories of Marxist ideology, and as critic Victor 0. Aire points out, Sembène is the author of the first translation of the Communist Manifesto into Wolof (Aire 1977, 284).
Sembène studied and was influenced communist artists and writers: Richard Wright; John Roderigo (Dos Pasos); Ricardo Neftali Reyes (aka Pablo Néruda); Ernest Hemingway; Nazim Hikmet (Turkey); the works of French Communist writer and resistance organizer Paul Eluart; and, Jean Bruller (Vercors) co-founder of Les Editions de minuit (devoted to the publication of works dealing with resistance); and author of the classic work about the German Occupation and the Resistance, Le silence de la mer (1942) (Silence of the Sea).
In 1962, Sembene spent a year learning cinematography at the Gorki Studios in Moscow, under the tutelage of Soviet director Marc Donskoï. At the end of 1962, he returned to Senegal with his knowledge and an old Soviet camera...
When asked about his switch from novel-writing to filmmaking, Sembène Ousmane often invoked the illiteracy in his native Senegal, which stood in the way of postcolonial writers’ ability to address their own peoples. He called cinema “Africa’s evening university.” Soviet cultural bureaucracies gradually reached a similar conclusion.
In both his writings and film, Sembène portrayed conflicts of Senegalese history, but more importantly the double colonization of his people (Portugal then France). In an Interview about the novel/film, "Emitaï", Sembène said: "There have been many, many coup d'etats in Africa and not a single one of these military people fought for the liberation of Africa. And at the time when there was an awareness taking place in Africa it was these military men who were killing and imprisoning their own brothers, mothers and sisters. In the majority of the French-speaking African countries the leaders and heads of state are heads of state with the consent of the French."
Afro-Asian solidarity was arguably one of the most prevalent forms of support in the U.S.S.R during its reign. The support given to the writers and playwrights of this time period was one of the great Eurasian efforts to support hard-working minorities despite their differences.
All forms of support assisted in making the lives of these gifted people celebrated and appreciated as we reflect back on them today. As we learn about the great accomplishments they made, we appreciate the journey and the hardship that they went through to be where they are.
Bibliography
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