The cultural Cold War in the Middle East

Esmaeil Haddadian-Moghaddam

doi:10.1075/tis.20076.had

Abstract

Abstract William Faulkner is an interesting case for the history of American cultural diplomacy. Although the State Department hailed him as a Cold War warrior, it had difficulty sponsoring his “modernist” novels in a book program that promoted American ideals during the Cold War. In this article I examine how the Franklin Book Programs arranged for some of Faulkner’s novels to be translated into Arabic and Persian by using sources from the Program’s archive and an interview with a former Franklin editor. The analysis is framed by Faulkner’s rise in status from a marginal to a major world writer. I also assess the cultural forces that led to his inclusion in Franklin’s list of publications. The analysis reveals a tension between American idealism and Cold War imperatives, further challenging the propagandist reading of the program and calling for a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of the cultural Cold War in the region.

Highlights

William Faulkner is an interesting case for the history of American cultural diplomacy
Jr., the President of American Franklin Book Programs, have something against Faulkner? After all, Faulkner was the winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, became a key “Cold War cultural ambassador” of the US State Department (Cohn 2016), and had “enthusiastic” friends in Latin America and the Middle East
Why was the good Mr Smith, four years into his running of the noted book program that functioned as a channel for American Cold War cultural diplomacy, calling himself a “sissy?”

Summary

Introduction

William Faulkner is an interesting case for the history of American cultural diplomacy. This article contributes to the study of the cultural Cold War beyond Europe, to interdisciplinary studies of Faulkner and cultural diplomacy (e.g., Cohn 2016), which have yet to address the author’s introduction in the Middle East, and to the complex history of Franklin Book Programs (hereafter referred to as Franklin). Apart from a brief section on the reception of Faulkner in Iran, it does not explore this issue or Faulkner’s impact on the Arabic or Persian Polysystem of literature, to borrow from Even-Zohar (1978/2004). It does not explore other Cold War cultural diplomacy initiatives or the cultural Cold War in the region as a whole. For the reception of Faulkner in the Arab world, see Yousef (1995); for Faulkner’s Arabic translator and the impact of The Sound and the Fury on modern Arabic literature, see Johnson (2009); for Faulkner and the Global South, see Aboul-Ela (2007)

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion