African-Asian Writers Organization

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The Afro-Asian Writers’ Association (AASO) was an association of African and Asian authors founded in 1958 and lasted until 1991.

Objectives

The aim of the association was to promote the literatures of Asia and Africa, to make them known worldwide and to free them from colonialist and neocolonial influences. She supported her members, for example through translations and lecture tours.

During the Cold War, the AASO appeared neutral, but was in fact closely linked to the cultural policy of the Soviet Union and financially dependent on it. The USSR sought to influence Third World societies by promoting literature and to make them independent of the major publishers of the Western World.

History

In October 1958, organized by the Organization for Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity (AAPSO), the first conference of Afro-Asian writers took place in Tashkent, on which the AASO was founded. Among the 140 participants from 36 countries was the already 90-year-old W. E. B. Du Bois. With the invitation of the African American, the organizers wanted to be open to Western culture. Further conferences took place:

February 1962 in Cairo
in March 1967 in Beirut
November 1970 in New Delhi
September 1973 in Alma-Ata
June 1979 in Luanda
1983 in Tashkent
1988 in Tunis

The organization established a coordination office based in Colombo, R.D. Senanayake became the organization's first general secretary. As a result of the Sino-Soviet rift, the office was moved to Cairo in 1962 and Egyptian Youssef el Sebai was elected secretary general to remove the AASO from China’s influence. El-Sebai was a supporter of Egyptian President Anwar as-Sadat. Due to its policy of understanding with Israel, El-Sebai was assassinated by a Palestinian splinter group during an AAPSO conference in Cyprus in 1978. The coordination office in Cairo was closed and at the AASO conference in Luanda, exiled South African Alex La Guma was elected to succeed Al-Sebai. The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 also meant the final end of the AASO.

Conference participants

Participants in the congresses included, in addition to the authors already mentioned, Mao Dun (PR China), Nazim Hikmet (Turkey), Guo Moruo (PR China), Mulk Raj Anand (India), Ngugi wa Thiongo (Kenya), Sembene Ousmane (Senegal), Tschingis Aitmatov (Kyrgyz SSR), Chinua Achebe (Nigeria), Mahmud Darvish (Palestine), Pramoedya Ananta Toer (Indonesia), Mário Pinto de Andrade (Angola) and Marcelino dos Santos (Mozambique).

Journal

The AASO published the English-language magazine The Call in the early 1960s and a quarterly journal from March 1968 to 1991, initially called Afro-Asian Writings and from 1970 the name Lotus. She appeared