UCLA

The appearance of Nancy Cunard's 1934 massive Negro: An Anthology represented a significant rupture in the literary and socio-political worlds of the interwar era. This collection of over 150 Black voices from around the world, along with a few notable white contributors, symbolized an important breach in Black radical literature at that time. Describing her work as a "brief outline of the history of the black race,"1 Cunard emphasized her personal desire to counter what she believed to be the racial superstitions of her day. That an heiress of old British wealth would produce an anthology of writing on the Black condition written primarily by Black people may, at first glance, appear incongruous, or yet another example of white bourgeois fascination with the Other. However, Cunard's interest in Black people and culture occasionally adopted a slightly exotic cast, and her investment in Negro: An Anthology was essentially political. She saw her work as a political intervention in defense of the Black world in a moment of crisis. Cunard rejected her aristocratic privilege and spent much of her life fighting fascism, imperialism and racism, through writing and various forms of political activism. This thesis attempts to situate the anthology within a broader context of global contingencies and historical convergences of the 1930s, with the understanding that Cunard was indeed a product of the networks of power of that time. Today, Negro: An Anthology is considered a major contribution to the intellectual and cultural history of 20th century African diasporic history.