Black Midas in Moscow
Conversations with Jan Carew
Joy Gleason Carew
Guyanese author Jan Carew is best known for his 1958 novel Black Midas. In 1964, Carew also published one of his most controversial books, Moscow Is Not My Mecca (US edition, Green Winter
[1965]). And, as he learned much later, an unauthorized version of his
book was circulated around the African continent as an “English language
reader.” Carew’s novel was based on the stories of his cousin and other
students from the Caribbean and Africa who had accepted scholarships to
study in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Carew also drew on
his own experiences as one of the first students from the
English-speaking Caribbean to receive a scholarship to the Eastern Bloc
countries when he went to Czechoslovakia in the early 1950s; and later,
when he made two visits to the Soviet Union in the 1960s as a guest of
the Soviet Writers’ Union. Following the publication of Moscow Is Not My Mecca, Carew
was challenged by the Left and lauded by the Right, as each side tried
to interpret his work from their often dogmatic and simplistic
formulations. Carew, on the other hand, was exploring a complex set of
relationships, which did not and still do not lend themselves to simple
either/or divisions. Recognizing the potential of the Soviet experiment
to provide much-needed support for the newly developing societies, Carew
also felt he had a right to critique problems as he saw them and to
call for reform.
Jan
Carew is now ninety-one and in the process of writing his memoirs. This
interview, conducted in Louisville, Kentucky, in July 2011, recounts
aspects of his experiences as a student in Prague and, later, as a
visitor to the Soviet Union, and his rising concern about the treatment
of black students there...[More]
To read the complete interview, go to SX Salon
For commentary on this interview and the Carews see Ourstorian
For commentary on this interview and the Carews see Ourstorian
