Displacing Wij slaven van Suriname

Abstract

This essay seeks to speculate on the reception of de Anton de Kom’s Wij slaven van Suriname (1934) within a very different context of political debates on race; decolonization; the politics of solidarity; and internationalist and anticapitalist struggles—all themes that De Kom’s narrative tackles in unique ways—and on the question of time. The author attempts to displace De Kom’s book away from its entanglement of political and intellectual connections and toward the diverse temporalities of Suriname’s decolonial struggles, seeking to explore what could be called the “collateral effects” produced by the 1934 publication of Wij slaven by a Caribbean publisher and institution. The author then compares the 1981 Spanish translation of De Kom’s work, Nosotros, esclavos de Surinam, with a different set of debates and texts addressed to diverse audiences and subjects entangled in distinct networks of political engagements and projects.