Constructing an Alternative African Literature Canon in Socialist China (1959–1964)

Abstract This essay examines the emergence and canonization of African literature in China from 1959 to 1964. Focusing on Ousmane Sembène and Lusophone African literature in two Chinese literary journals, Literary Gazette and World Literature , and full-length translations, as well as tracing the routes through which they were circulated and translated into Chinese, I argue that the construction of this alternative African literature canon was contingent, improvisational, but nevertheless, strategic. This alternative canon was both a product of the collaborative efforts of numerous cultural institutions and individuals, and a product of Cold War politics reflected through Socialist China’s entanglement within the bipolar Cold War structure and, at times, its transcendence of it. Ultimately, this essay challenges the normative story of postcolonial African literary canonization that centers on the Anglophone African novel based in the West and reveals the processes of how powers operated and shaped this alternative canon.