Cover not available
Article published In:
Translation and the cultural Cold War
Edited by Esmaeil Haddadian-Moghaddam and Giles Scott-Smith
[Translation and Interpreting Studies 15:3] 2020
► pp. 441–463

The cultural Cold War in the Middle East

William Faulkner and Franklin Book Programs

ORCID logo | Universiteit Leiden
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.
Keywords: William Faulkner, the cultural Cold War, Franklin Book Programs, cultural diplomacy, the Middle East
Article outline
  • Cultural Cold War and Franklin Book Programs: New insights
  • Faulkner and translation
  • Faulkner and the cultural Cold War
    • The cultural Cold War and Faulkner in the Middle East
    • “Not so evil and nihilistic”: The Unvanquished (1938)
    • “Such an emphatic stand:” Sanctuary (1931)
    • “This hair-raising piece of nihilism:” The Sound and the Fury (1929)
  • Discussion
  • Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 1 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.20076.had
References (85)
References
Primary sources
“Franklin Book Programs Records.” Public Policy Papers, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University Library (bracketed numbers refer to box and folder numbers):
Ali Khan 1956, Nov. 17 (206/8) Google Scholar
el-Aroussy 1955, Mar. 14; 1957a, Jun. 11; 1957b, July 4 (206/8)Google Scholar
Memorandum of agreement 1958, Oct. 25 (206/8) Google Scholar
Munger 1956, July 11 (206/8) Google Scholar
Najm 1957, July 4; 1962, Jan. 11 (206/8)Google Scholar
Publication file(s) 1955, June 13; Oct. 24; 1961, July 21 (206/8)Google Scholar
Smith 1954, May 12; 1956, Nov. 27; 1962, Jan. 18; 1957a, Jan. 10; 1957b, June 19; 1958a, June 18 (47/3); 1958b, June 2 (206/8); 1977, Dec. 28 (4/8)Google Scholar
“Franklin Book Program Collection, 1952–1978.” The Harry Ransom Center, the University of Texas at Austin:
Anvar 1958, May 25 (361/≠453–1001); 1959, Apr. 7 (361/≠1002–1681); Google Scholar
Sanati 1956, July 1 (341/≠1–451); 1957 Jan. 19 (361/≠453–1001)Google Scholar
Henderson, Loy W. 1953. “United States Embassy, Iran Despatch.” National Archives. Record Group 59. Records of the Department of State. Decimal Files, 1950–1954. Accessed 20 January 2020. [URL]
IIA: 10th Semiannual Report of the Secretary of State to Congress on the International Information and Educational Exchange Program (July 1952–December 1952). Washington, DC. Department of State.Google Scholar
NSC., 1952. “A Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretory on the United States Objectives and Policies with Respect to Arab States and Israel.” Accessed 5 May 2020. [URL]
United States Doctrinal Program, PSB D-33/2, May 5, 1953. Accessed 4 September 2020. [URL]
United States, 1952. International Information Administration. Information Center Service Letter from Dan Lacy to Datus C. Smith, Jr. [Guidance for Franklin Publications]. Accessed 15 May 2020. [URL]
Wells, Edward C. 1954. “United States Embassy, Iran Despatch to the Department of State. ‘Educational Exchange: U.S. Specialist Program.” Accessed 15 February 2020. [URL]
Secondary sources
Aboul-Ela, Hosam. 2007. Other South Faulkner, Coloniality, and the Mariátegui Tradition. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburg Press.Google Scholar
Amanat, Abbas. 2017. Iran: A Modern History. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Anvar, Manuchehr. Personal interview. Tehran, June 2019.Google Scholar
Arrabai, Ali M. 2019. The Franklin Books Program: Translation and Image-building in the Cold War. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Kent State University.Google Scholar
Aytür, Necla. 1973. “Faulkner in Turkish.” In William Faulkner: Prevailing Verities and World Literature, ed. by W. T. Zyla and W. M. Aycock, 25–40. Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University.Google Scholar
Barnhisel, Greg. 2010. “Cold warriors of the book: American book programs in the 1950s.” Book History 131: 185–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015. Cold War Modernists: Art, Literature, and American Cultural Diplomacy. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Barnhisel, Greg and Catherine Turner, eds. 2010. Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Curtis G. 1984. U.S. Books Abroad: Neglected Ambassadors. Washington, DC: Library of Congress.Google Scholar
Boullata, Issa J. 1973. “The beleaguered unicorn: A study of Tawfiq Sayigh.” Journal of Arabic Literature 4 (1): 69–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boyle, Stephanie. 2013. “Egypt.” In Encyclopedia of the Cold War, vols. 1 and 21, 284–287. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chapdelaine, Annick and Gillian Lane-Mercier, eds. 2001. Faulkner: une expérience de retraduction. Montreal: Université de Montréal. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Citino, Nathan J. 2019. “The Middle East and the Cold War.” Cold War History 19 (3): 441–456. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coghlan, David and Mary Brydon-Miller. 2014. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research. (Vols. 1–21). London: SAGE. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cohn, Deborah. 1997. “‘He was one of us’: The reception of William Faulkner and the U.S. South by Latin American authors.” Comparative Literature Studies 34 (2): 149–69.Google Scholar
. 2016. “‘In between propaganda and escapism’: William Faulkner as Cold War cultural ambassador.” Diplomatic History 40 (3): 392–420. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coindreau, Maurice Edgar. 1957. “On translating Faulkner.” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 18 (3): 108–113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colla, Elliott. 2015. “Badr Shākir al-Sayyāb, Cold War Poet.” Middle Eastern Literatures 18 (3): 247–263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Compton, Wilson M. 1952. Waging the Campaign of Truth. Washington, DC: Department of State Publications.Google Scholar
Creswell, Robyn. 2019. City of Beginnings: Poetic Modernity in Beirut. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Crewdson, John M. and Joseph B. Treaster. 1977. “Worldwide propaganda network built by the CIA.” The New York Times 26 December, 1, 37.Google Scholar
Etemaad daily, 1386/2007. “Goftego ba Bahman Sholevar: Bakhsh-e payani” (An interview with Bahman Sholevar, the final part). 15 Day, 111.Google Scholar
Even-Zohar, Itamar. 1978/2004. “The position of translated literature within the literary polysystem.” In The Translation Studies Reader, 2nd edition, ed. by Lawrence Venuti, 199–204. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fayen, Tanya T. 1995. In Search of the Latin American Faulkner. Lanham: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Fawcett, Louise. 1992. Iran and the Cold War: The Azerbaijan Crisis of 1946. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Filstrup, J. M. 1976. “Franklin Book Program/Tehran.” International Library Review 81: 431–450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haddadian-Moghaddam, Esmaeil. 2016. “The cultural Cold War and the circulation of world literature: Insights from Franklin Book Programs in Tehran.” Journal of World Literature 1 (3): 371–390. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hagood, Taylor. 2017. Following Faulkner: The Critical Response to Yoknapatawpha’s Architect. Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer.Google Scholar
Halim, Hala. 2012. “Lotus, the Afro-Asian nexus, and Global South Comparatism.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 32 (3): 563–583. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hariri, Naser. 1376/1997. Yek Goftegu: Naser Hariri ba Najaf Daryabandari [An Interview]. Tehran: Karname.Google Scholar
Holt, Elizabeth M. 2017. “Cold War in the Arabic press: Ḥiwār (Beirut, 1962–67) and the Congress for Cultural Freedom.” In Campaigning Culture and the Global Cold War: The Journals of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, ed. by Giles Scott-Smith and Charlotte A. Lerg, 227–242. London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hosseini, Saleh. 1991. “Mosahebeh ba Saleh Hosseini darbare-ye khashm va hayahoo [an interview about The Sound and the Fury].” Motarjem 1 (1): 21–33.Google Scholar
Iber, Patrick. 2019. “The Cultural Cold War.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Rebecca Carol. 2009. “The politics of reading: Revolution and recognition in Jabra Ibrahim Jabra’s In Search of Walid Masoud .” In Recognition: The Poetics of Narrative: Interdisciplinary Studies on Anagnorisis, ed. by Philip F. Kennedy and Marilyn Lawrence, 178–192. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Khalidi, Rashid. 2009. Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Kinnunen, Tuija and Kaisa Koskinen, eds. 2010. Translator’s Agency. Tampere: Tampere University Press.Google Scholar
Kodat, Catherine Gunther. 2015. “Unsteady state: Faulkner and the Cold War.” In William Faulkner in Context, ed. by John T. Matthews, 156–165. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krenn, Michael L. 2017. The History of United States Cultural Diplomacy: 1770 to the Present Day. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Kreyling, Michael. 2015. “Reading Faulkner: Empathy, distance, Tehran.” In William Faulkner in Context, ed. by John T. Matthews, 259–269. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lacy, Dan and Robert W. Fraser. 2015. “The American Book Publishers Council.” In A History of the Book in America: Volume 5 – The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America, ed. by David Paul Nord, et al., 195–209. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Ladd, Barbara. 2008. “Faulkner and translation.” The Faulkner Journal 24 (1): 3–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laugesen, Amanda. 2010. “Books for the World: American Book Programs in the developing world, 1948–1968.” In Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War, ed. by Greg Barnhisel and Catherine Turner, 126–144. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
. 2018. Taking Books to the World: American Publishers and the Cultural Cold War. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Liénard, Marie. 1999. “Translations.” In A William Faulkner Encyclopedia, ed. by Robert W. Hamblin and Charles A. Peek, 408–10. Westport: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Lucas, Scott. 1996. “Campaigns of truth: The Psychological Strategy Board and American ideology, 1951–1953.” The International History Review 18 (2): 279–302. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lüthi, Lorenz M. 2020. Cold Wars: Asia, the Middle East, Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Márquez, Antonio C. 1995. “Faulkner in Latin America.” The Faulkner Journal 11 (1/2): 83–100.Google Scholar
Marques dos Santos, Ana Teresa. 2008. “Faulkner and the Portuguese censorship.” In Translation and Censorship in Different Times and Landscapes, ed. by Teresa Seruya and Maria Lin Moniz, 21–46. New Castle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Mikkonen, Simo, Giles Scott-Smith, and Jari Parkkinen, eds. 2019. Entangled East and West: Cultural Diplomacy and Artistic Interaction during the Cold War. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Padgett, John B. “The unvanquished: Commentary.” William Faulkner on the Web. Accessed 10 March 2020. [URL]
Robbins, Louise. S. 2007. “Publishing American values: The Franklin Book Programs as Cold War cultural diplomacy.” Library Trends 55 (3): 638–650. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saeedi, Samira. 2020. The Role of Translators in Contemporary Iran: New Perspectives on Collaboration, Retranslation, and Visibility. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Melbourne.Google Scholar
Sapiro, Giséle. 2016. “Faulkner in France: Or how to introduce a peripheral unknown author in the center of the World Republic of Letters.” Journal of World Literature 3 (1): 391–411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saunders, Frances Stonor. 1999. Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War. London: Granta.Google Scholar
Sayigh, Yezid and Avi Shlaim, eds. 1997. The Cold War and the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schunz, Simon, Giles Scott-Smith, and Luc Van Langenhove. 2019. “Broadening soft power in EU-US Relations.” European Foreign Affairs Review 24 (2/1): 3–19.Google Scholar
Scott-Smith, Giles. 2016. “Cultural diplomacy.” In Global Diplomacy: Theories, Types, and Models, ed. by Alison R. Holmes and J. Simon Rofe, 176–190. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
. 2019. “Transatlantic cultural relations, soft power, and the role of US cultural diplomacy in Europe.” European Foreign Affairs Review 241: 21–42.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Lawrence H. 1988. Creating Faulkner’s Reputation: The Politics of Modern Literary Criticism. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Sluglett, Peter. 2013. “The Cold War in the Middle East.” In International Relations of the Middle East, 3rd edition, ed. by Louise Fawcett, 60–76. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Datus C. 2000. “Franklin Book Program.” In Encyclopædia Iranica. vol. X1, ed. by Ehsan Yarshater, 187–190. Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation.Google Scholar
Smith, Lyn. 1980. “Covert British propaganda: The Information Research Department: 1947–77.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 9 (1): 67–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Takey, Ray and Steven Simon. 2016. The Pragmatic Superpower: Winning the Cold War in the Middle East. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Travis, Trysh. 2013. “Books in the Cold War: Beyond ‘culture’ and ‘information.’” In The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies, ed. by Jonathan Auerbach and Russ Castronovo, 180–200. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vatikiotis, P. J. 1997. The Middle East: From the End of Empire to the End of the Cold War. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Vaughan, James R. 2005. The Failure of American and British Propaganda in the Arab Middle East, 1945–57: Unconquerable Minds. New York: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010. “The United States and the limits of cultural diplomacy in the Arab Middle East, 1945–1957.” In Searching for a Cultural Diplomacy, ed. by Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht and Mark C. Donfried, 162–188. Oxford: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Yousef, Tawfiq. 1995. “The reception of William Faulkner in the Arab World.” American Studies International 33 (2): 41–48.Google Scholar