The Practice of Diaspora

Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism

Brent Hayes Edwards

  • 2003 Gilbert Chinard Prize awarded jointly by the Society for French Historical Studies and the Institut Français de Washington
  • Honorable Mention, 2004 James Russell Lowell Prize, Sponsored by the Modern Language Association
  • 2004 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize, Sponsored by the American Studies Association

List of Illustrations

Prologue

1. Variations on a Preface
Translating the Word Nègre
The Frame of Blackness
Race and the Modern Anthology
Border Work
A Blues Note

2. On Reciprocity: René Maran and Alain Locke
Véritable Roman Nègre
A "Black Logic" of the Preface
Paris, Heart of the Negro Race
Encounter on the Rhine
The Practice of Diaspora

3. Feminism and L'Internationalisme Noir: Paulette Nardal
Gender in Black Paris
Feminism and La Dépêche Africaine
Salons and Cercles d'Amis
Black Magic
Begin the Beguine

4. Vagabond Internationalism: Claude McKay's Banjo
Légitime Défense: Translating Banjo
Vagabond Internationalism
Diaspora and the "Passable Word"
The Boys in the Band
Black Radicalism and the Politics of Form

5. Inventing the Black International: George Padmore and Tiemoko Garan Kouyaté
The Negro Worker
Black Collaboration, Black Deviation
Black Marxism in Translation
Toward a Francophone Internationalism
International African

Coda: The Last Anthology

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

  • Cover: The Practice of Diaspora
  • A photo of the author

Brent Hayes Edwards is Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University.