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“Bread or Freedom”: The Congress for Cultural Freedom, the CIA, and the Arabic Literary Journal Ḥiwār (1962-67) (complete)
- Author(s):
- Elizabeth M. Holt (see profile)
- Date:
- 2013
- Group(s):
- 2019 MLA Convention
- Subject(s):
- Cold War (1945-1989), Spying, Area studies, Arabic literature, Little magazines, Italy--Rome, Rome (Empire)
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- Beirut, cairo, Empire, Congress for Cultural Freedom, Cold War, Surveillance studies, Global modernism, Rome
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/tweq-zm49
- Abstract:
- In 1950, the United States Central Intelligence Agency created the Congress for Cultural Free- dom, with its main offices in Paris, lhe CCF was designed as a cultural front in the Cold War in response to the Soviet Cominform, and founded and funded a worldwide network of literary journals (as well as conferences, concerts, art exhibits and other cultural events). From 1 962 until its scandalous collapse over the course of 1966 and the early months of 1967, Tawfîq Sãyigh edited the CCF s Arabic outpost Hiwãr from Beirut, joining a growing web of CCF journals, including London's Encounter , Kampala's Transition , Bombay's Quest , and the Latin American, Paris-based Mundo Nuevo. Hiwãr , a journal funded by the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and thus covertly by the CIA, sought to co-opt the Arab avant-garde, offering authors both material compensation for their writing, as well as the much lauded cultural freedom. By 1966, Hiwãr s promise to writers of both bread and freedom collapsed in the pages of the Arabic press under the weight of paradox and a worldwide scandal on the eve of the 1967 Arab defeat.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 4 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
- Share this:
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holtbreadorfreedom.pdf