Afro-Asian Writers' Bureau
 First Afro-Asian Writers' Conference in Tashkent, Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, 1958 | |
| Abbreviation | AAWB |
|---|---|
| Successor | Writers’ Union of Africa, Asia, and Latin American |
| Formation | 1957 |
| Dissolved | 1990s |
| Purpose | Promotion of Afro-Asian cultural exchange and solidarity |
| Location |
|
Region served | Africa, Asia, Middle East |
| Membership | Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, Egypt |
Secretary General | Ratne Deshapriya Senanayake |
The Afro-Asian Writers' Bureau (AAWB), also known as the Afro-Asian Writers Association, and the Permanent Bureau of Afro-Asian Writers, was a transcultural, intellectual, and political organization that sought to challenge Eurocentric narratives by fostering solidarity among writers from formerly colonized nations.
History
The AAWB emerged from the Bandung Conference in 1955.[1] Influenced by Maoism and global socialist movements, such as the Soviets and Nasserism,[2] the organization's members aimed to be actors of cultural decolonisation.[3]
Decolonisation in the Cold War era sparked a rise in literary writing committed to anticolonial politics.[4] From 1957 to the late 20th century, the AAWB served as a forum for transnational solidarity among anticolonial writers, resisting the uneven political and economic structures of the existing world through artistic collaboration.[5] With prominent members like Mao Dun, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Kofi Awoonor, Nazim Hikmet, Yusuf Sibai, Efua Sutherland, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zhou Yang, and Ratne Deshapriya Senanayake, the AAWB played a pivotal role in promoting literary and political exchange among decolonizing nations.
The Soviet Union and China competed for control of the AAWB as a tool for cultural diplomacy, a strategy which China continues to build on in the twenty-first century.[6] Despite these conflicts, the AAWB saw transnational collaboration on major conferences and international recognition for publications such as Lotus, The Call, and the Afro-Asian Poetry Anthology series. The AAWB provided a platform for cultural exchange, anti-colonial discourse, and the redefinition of modernity from an Afro-Asian perspective.[7]
In 2019, the AAWB would be revived as the Writers’ Union of Africa, Asia, and Latin American.[8]
See also
- Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO)
- Bandung Conference
- Lotus (magazine)
- Lotus Prize for Literature
Notes
Bibliography
- Fatima, Maryam. “Institutionalizing Afro-Asianism: Lotus and the (Dis)Contents of Soviet-Third World Cultural Politics.” Comparative Literature Studies 59, no. 3 (August 2022): 447–67.
- Han, Gül Bilge. “Nazım Hikmet's Afro-Asian Solidarities.” Safundi 19, no. 3 (July 2018): 284–305.
- Holt, Elizabeth M. “Cairo and the Cultural Cold War for Afro-Asia.” In The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties, edited by Jian Chen, Martin Klimke, Masha Kirasirova, Mary Nolan, Marilyn Young, and Joanna Waley-Cohen. 1st ed., 480–493. Routledge, 2018.
- Nabolsy, Zeyad el. “Lotus and the Self-Representation of Afro-Asian Writers as the Vanguard of Modernity.” Interventions 23, no. 4 (May 2021): 596–620.
- Vanhove, Pieter. “China and the Restaging of Afro-Asian World Literature.” In World Literature after Empire : Rethinking Universality in the Long Cold War. 1st ed., 27–50. Routledge, 2022.
- Vanhove, Pieter. “‘A World to Win’: China, the Afro-Asian Writers’ Bureau, and the Reinvention of World Literature.” Critical Asian Studies 51, no. 2 (April 2019): 144–65.
- Yoon, Duncan M. “‘Our Forces Have Redoubled’: World Literature, Postcolonialism, and the Afro-Asian Writers’ Bureau.” Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry 2, no. 2 (May 14, 2015): 233–52.
Further reading
- Abou-El-Fadl, Reem. “Building Egypt's Afro-Asian Hub: Infrastructures of Solidarity and the 1957 Cairo Conference.” Journal of World History 30, no. 1–2 (June 2019): 157–92.
- McCann, Gerard. “Where Was the Afro in Afro-Asian Solidarity? Africa's ‘Bandung Moment’ in 1950s Asia.” Journal of World History 30, no. 1–2 (2019): 89–124.
- Yoon, Duncan M. “Cold War Africa and China: The Afro-Asian Writers’ Bureau and the Rise of Postcolonial Literature.” Cold War Africa and China: The Afro-Asian Writers’ Bureau and the Rise of Postcolonial Literature. Thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 2014.