American Night

The Literary Left in the Era of the Cold War

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American, Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 20th Century
Cover of the book American Night by Alan M. Wald, The University of North Carolina Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Alan M. Wald ISBN: 9780807837344
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press Publication: October 15, 2012
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press Language: English
Author: Alan M. Wald
ISBN: 9780807837344
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication: October 15, 2012
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Language: English

American Night, the final volume of an unprecedented trilogy, brings Alan Wald's multigenerational history of Communist writers to a poignant climax. Using new research to explore the intimate lives of novelists, poets, and critics during the Cold War, Wald reveals a radical community longing for the rebirth of the social vision of the 1930s and struggling with a loss of moral certainty as the Communist worldview was being called into question. The resulting literature, Wald shows, is a haunting record of fracture and struggle linked by common structures of feeling, ones more suggestive of the "negative dialectics" of Theodor Adorno than the traditional social realism of the Left.
Establishing new points of contact among Kenneth Fearing, Ann Petry, Alexander Saxton, Richard Wright, Jo Sinclair, Thomas McGrath, and Carlos Bulosan, Wald argues that these writers were in dialogue with psychoanalysis, existentialism, and postwar modernism, often generating moods of piercing emotional acuity and cosmic dissent. He also recounts the contributions of lesser known cultural workers, with a unique accent on gays and lesbians, secular Jews, and people of color. The vexing ambiguities of an era Wald labels "late antifascism" serve to frame an impressive collective biography.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

American Night, the final volume of an unprecedented trilogy, brings Alan Wald's multigenerational history of Communist writers to a poignant climax. Using new research to explore the intimate lives of novelists, poets, and critics during the Cold War, Wald reveals a radical community longing for the rebirth of the social vision of the 1930s and struggling with a loss of moral certainty as the Communist worldview was being called into question. The resulting literature, Wald shows, is a haunting record of fracture and struggle linked by common structures of feeling, ones more suggestive of the "negative dialectics" of Theodor Adorno than the traditional social realism of the Left.
Establishing new points of contact among Kenneth Fearing, Ann Petry, Alexander Saxton, Richard Wright, Jo Sinclair, Thomas McGrath, and Carlos Bulosan, Wald argues that these writers were in dialogue with psychoanalysis, existentialism, and postwar modernism, often generating moods of piercing emotional acuity and cosmic dissent. He also recounts the contributions of lesser known cultural workers, with a unique accent on gays and lesbians, secular Jews, and people of color. The vexing ambiguities of an era Wald labels "late antifascism" serve to frame an impressive collective biography.

More books from The University of North Carolina Press

Cover of the book Germans to the Front by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Gettysburg--The Second Day by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book How to Read a North Carolina Beach by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Yours in Sisterhood by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Civil-Military Relations in Latin America by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Let Us Have Peace by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Radical Moves by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Muslim Pilgrimage in the Modern World by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Journal of the Civil War Era by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Innocent Experiments by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Journal of the Civil War Era by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Custom, Kinship, and Gifts to Saints by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Lydia Cabrera and the Construction of an Afro-Cuban Cultural Identity by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam by Alan M. Wald
Cover of the book Bread and the Ballot by Alan M. Wald
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy