Penning a New World: Cross-Cultural Exchange and National Culture in the Asia-Africa Writers Conferences

• In Event: Beyond Solidarity: Revisiting Socialist Aid in the Global South

Abstract

The Asia-Africa Writers Conferences (1958-1988) emerged during the Cold War as forums for cultural exchange and solidarity among writers from post-colonial and decolonial nations. Against the backdrop of decolonization and the rise of new nation-states, these gatherings offered a space for literary dialogue that bridged diverse traditions, languages, and political ideologies. Writers from Africa and Asia came together to discuss their lived realities under colonial oppression and the challenges of forging national culture in a rapidly modernizing world. At the same time, these conferences reflected tensions within global politics, shaped not only by participants' aspirations but also by the geopolitical agendas of sponsors like the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union viewed the conferences as a forum to project its ideological commitment to anti-colonialism and socialist solidarity, using cultural diplomacy to counter Western influence. Soviet Central Asian writers were deliberately foregrounded as evidence of socialist-led modernity and the transformative power of Soviet policies. While the stated goals of the conferences emphasized solidarity and cultural exchange, they revealed tensions between the creative autonomy of Soviet Central Asian writers and the political directives of Soviet-led initiatives. Socialist realism and narratives of rapid modernization were presented as models for post-colonial development but did not always align with the lived experiences or artistic visions of the writers themselves.

This paper argues that the true significance of these conferences lies not in their political agendas but in the literary and cultural legacies they inspired. African and Central Asian writers like Sembène Ousmane, Chingiz Aitmatov, and Olzhas Suleimenov were key contributors to artistic movements stemming from these gatherings. They grappled with cultural preservation, modernization, and transnational solidarity through their works. Through interviews with conference participants and archival research, this study analyzes these works and relationships to highlight how cross-national literary exchanges both reinforced and complicated the boundaries of national culture, revealing the tensions and intersections between politics, culture, and identity during the Cold War.

Author

• Alice Volfson, Harvard U