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Article published In: Translation and the cultural Cold War
Edited by Esmaeil Haddadian-Moghaddam and Giles Scott-Smith
[Translation and Interpreting Studies 15:3] 2020
► pp. 441–463

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The cultural Cold War in the Middle East

William Faulkner and Franklin Book Programs

ORCiD logo with link | Universiteit Leiden
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 1 October 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.20076.had
Abstract
William Faulkner is an interesting case for the history of American cultural diplomacy. Although the State Department hailed him as a Cold War warrior, it had difficulty sponsoring his “modernist” novels in a book program that promoted American ideals during the Cold War. In this article I examine how the Franklin Book Programs arranged for some of Faulkner’s novels to be translated into Arabic and Persian by using sources from the Program’s archive and an interview with a former Franklin editor. The analysis is framed by Faulkner’s rise in status from a marginal to a major world writer. I also assess the cultural forces that led to his inclusion in Franklin’s list of publications. The analysis reveals a tension between American idealism and Cold War imperatives, further challenging the propagandist reading of the program and calling for a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of the cultural Cold War in the region.
Article outline
  • Cultural Cold War and Franklin Book Programs: New insights
  • Faulkner and translation
  • Faulkner and the cultural Cold War
    • The cultural Cold War and Faulkner in the Middle East
    • “Not so evil and nihilistic”: The Unvanquished (1938)
    • “Such an emphatic stand:” Sanctuary (1931)
    • “This hair-raising piece of nihilism:” The Sound and the Fury (1929)
  • Discussion
  • Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by (2)

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2025. Translation, soft power, and Cold War book diplomacy: Franklin Book Programs’ legacy in words, images, and memory. Perspectives 33:1 ► pp. 42 ff. DOI logo
Teng, Teng
2025. Knowledge Flow and Knowledge Production: A Study on the Translation Practices of the Franklin Book Program in the Middle East. Journal of Asian and African Studies DOI logo

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