Exiles from a Future Time

The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Literary Left

By: Alan M. Wald

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Paperback | 29 April 2002

At a Glance

Paperback
432 Pages

Edition Type
New edition

Dimensions(cm)
23.5 x 15.24 x 2.54

Paperback

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With this book, Alan Wald launches a bold and passionate account of the U.S. Literary Left from the 1920s through the 1960s. Exiles from a Future Time, the first volume of a trilogy, focuses on the forging of a Communist-led literary tradition in the 1930s. Exploring writers' intimate lives and heartfelt political commitments, Wald draws on original research in scores of archives and personal collections of papers; correspondence and interviews with hundreds of writers and their friends and families; and a treasure trove of unpublished memoirs, fiction, and poetry.

In fashioning a "humanscape" of the Literary Left, Wald not only reassesses acclaimed authors but also returns to memory dozens of forgotten, talented writers. The authors range from the familiar Mike Gold, Langston Hughes, and Muriel Rukeyser to William Attaway, John Malcolm Brinnin, Stanley Burnshaw, Joy Davidman, Sol Funaroff, Joseph Freeman, Alfred Hayes, Eugene Clay Holmes, V. J. Jerome, Ruth Lechlitner, and Frances Winwar.

Focusing on the formation of the tradition and the organization of the Cultural Left, Wald investigates the "elective affinity" of its avant-garde poets, the "Afro-cosmopolitanism" of its Black radical literary movement, and the uneasy negotiation between feminist concerns and class identity among its women writers.

Industry Reviews

This is a fascinating, perhaps even magisterial record of the complex achievement of those many American writers who gallantly dared to imagine a world free of reckless capitalism and its attendant social plagues. (Arnold Rampersad, author of "The Life of Langston Hughes")
Alan Wald demolishes the myth of a cultural commissar forcing radical writers to follow Moscow's artistic line. In its place, he offers a fascinating portrayal of a group of gifted left-wing poets and novelists pursuing their own intensely personal literary and political trajectories. (Ellen Schrecker, author of "Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America")
Wald's study emphasizes biography in order to illumine the connection between political convictions and literary art. The result blends literary scholarship and oral history. . . . Valuable for assessing the contributions of numerous individual writers. ("Library Journal")

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Reference, Information & Interdisciplinary Subjects Interdisciplinary Studies General Studies Literature, Poetry & Plays History & Criticism of Literature General Literary Studies Literary Studies from 1900 to Current Society & Culture Cultural Studies Politics & Government Political Ideologies & Movements

Socialism & Left-of-Centre Democratic Ideologies History Earliest Times to Present Day 20th Century History from 1900 to 2000 Regional & National History History of the Americas Literary Studies of Poetry & Poets

Preface
A Note on the Terminology and Illustrations
Introduction: Strange Communists I Have Known	p. 1
American Jeremiad	p. 9
Recording Angel	p. 9
Shakespeare in Overalls	p. 15
Poems for Workers	p. 18
"Write It Plain"	p. 28
Revolutionary Romanticism	p. 33
Inventing Mike Gold	p. 39
"A Kind of Cheeky Krazy Kat"	p. 39
"By Street Life and Thunder"	p. 42
Poverty Is a Trap	p. 45
Meyerhold in Harlem	p. 50
The Van Gogh of a Darker Time	p. 55
The Gold Standard	p. 61
The Great Promise	p. 71
Living in a "State of Emergency"	p. 71
"Waiting for Trachty"	p. 76
The Black Cultural Front	p. 80
African Americans and the John Reed Clubs	p. 84
Gender and Party Commitment	p. 95
The New Masses and the Social Muse	p. 103
"Bloody Anarchists"	p. 103
Becoming a Weekly	p. 108
Portrait of a New Masses Literary Editor	p. 112
Poetry and the Popular Front	p. 119
The Last Refuge	p. 127
Yogis and Commissars	p. 163
Love and Revolution	p. 163
A Pen Dripped in Vitriol	p. 166
The St. Augustine of Communism	p. 171
The Red Valentino	p. 178
A Divided Life	p. 185
The Dream with the Changing Name	p. 190
Three Moderns in Search of an Answer	p. 193
The Modernist Temptation	p. 193
Bastard in the Ragged Suit	p. 198
Apollinaire of the Proletariat	p. 204
Byron of the Poolhalls	p. 214
Sappho in Red	p. 229
Loyalties	p. 229
The Rational Ecologist	p. 234
Waltzing Mouse	p. 238
And God Came In	p. 244
The Apostate	p. 247
The Premature Socialist-Feminists	p. 252
Black Marxists in White America	p. 263
Transcending Narrow Nationalisms	p. 263
New Challenges	p. 267
"New" and "Newer" Negroes	p. 276
Between Class and Nationality	p. 279
From Banjo to Melody	p. 291
Conclusion: The Antinomies of a Proletarian Avant-grade	p. 299
Flights and Moorings	p. 299
A Social Poet's Progress	p. 306
Poets and Criminals	p. 316
Chronology of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Cultural Left	p. 327
Notes	p. 331
Acknowledgments and Sources	p. 393
Index	p. 399
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Exiles from a Future Time

The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Literary Left

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

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How to return your order

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