Copyright By Russell S Cobb 2007 The Dissertation Committee for Russell St. Clair Cobb certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Our Men in Paris? Mundo Nuevo, the Cuban Revolution, and the Politics of Cultural Freedom Committee: ___________________________________ Naomi Lindstrom, Supervisor ____________________________________ Charles Rossman, Supervisor ____________________________________ Mark Lawrence ____________________________________ César Salgado ____________________________________ Nicolas Shumway ____________________________________ Dolora Chapelle Wojciehowski Our Men in Paris? Mundo Nuevo, the Cuban Revolution, and the Politics of Cultural Freedom by Russell St Clair Cobb, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2007 Dedication I dedicate this work to my parents, Patricia and Candler Cobb. Acknowlegments This dissertation has its roots in my coursework as Master’s student in Spanish, when I was fortunate to benefit from the knowledge and expertise of three committee members, Naomi Lindstrom, César Salgado, and Nicolas Shumway. Dr. Lindstrom, in particular, was instrumental in helping me understand the rigors and expectations of scholarly writing. Her patience and guidance have been essential in helping me carry out this project. She read and reread different versions of the dissertation, and helped to stick to deadlines, something that did not come naturally for me. Dr. Salgado and Dr. Shumway opened my eyes to the important connections between twentieth-century Latin American literature and its social and historial context in graduate seminars. I am grateful for their continued support as my interests evolved over the years. I must thank Charles Rossman for giving me the original idea to take on Mundo Nuevo not just as a unique vehicle for literature, but as an important link to Cold War politics. Dr. Rossman has been a source of constant intellectual stimulation over extended talks over coffee. I must also thank him for helping mold my prose style into a more accessible and readable style. As a historian, Dr. Mark Lawrence’s suggestions proved invaluable as I related a literary magazine to larger historical movements. He provided a list of books and challenged my thinking about U.S.-Latin American relations as well as providing valuable feedback about the project in its early stages. Dr. Dolora Chapelle Wojciehowski also challenged me to re-examine some assumptions about art and political power in a way that enriched not only this dissertation, but my critical thinking abilities as a whole. I thank her for her words of encouragement in my moments of doubt. v I must also thank the staff of the various libraries I consulted over the past two years, especially at the University of Chicago, Princeton University, the Benson Latin American Collection, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. These libraries allowed me access to important archival materials. In many ways, this work retraces an unkown history of connections between writers, editors, and political figures. Open access to archives is essential for creating honest and accurate history and I thank those institutions for encouraging and funding this sort of work. Many friends in Austin, New York, and Oklahoma, helped me work through the ideas presented here. In particular, I would like to thank Courtney Johnson, Jaime Marroquin, Chris Sachse, Jonathan Shainin, for pushing me to explain the tricky relationship between the CIA and Latin American literature, often over a few beers and hard questions. True intellectual gratification comes from a sense of community and these people—among others—helped me establish a meaningful dialogue with other writers and critics. I owe almost everything to my soon-to-be wife, Rachel Hertz, for her unrelenting, unquestioning support with this project. Rachel pushed me to trudge on when I wanted to stop. She proofread the manuscript at various stages, often pushing aside her own work to help me with mine. She has been my constant companion, editor, and friend. I would have given up a long time ago without her. Finally, I thank my mother, Pat Cobb, for tolerating my whims, entertaining my wanderlust, and at least pretending to understand the crazy ideas put forth in the following pages even when they seemed to make no sense. Although this project covers many continents, languages, and ideologies, I remain, like my family, an Okie at heart. vi Our Men in Paris? Mundo Nuevo, the Cuban Revolution, and the Politics of Cultural Freedom Publication No._________________________ Russell St. Clair Cobb, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2007 Supervisors: Naomi Lindstrom, Charles Rossman The Paris-based literary magazine Mundo Nuevo disseminated some of the most original and experimental Latin American writing from 1966—the date of its founding— to 1968, the year its editor-in-chief resigned and the magazine moved to Buenos Aires. Despite its fame, the magazine’s role in the Boom and the cultural Cold War has been misunderstood by critics, who have either viewed Mundo Nuevo as a tool for CIA propaganda (it was recipient of CIA funds for two years) or non-political, avant-garde magazine. Mundo Nuevo’s founding editor, Emir Rodríguez Monegal, saw the magazine vii as an outlet for turning Latin American literature in world literature. Mundo Nuevo published essays, interviews and fiction from such writers as Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, and Guillermo Cabrera Infante. Because its funding has been traced back to the CIA-sponsored Congress for Cultural Freedom, Mundo Nuevo has also been a lightning rod for political controversy. Since the magazine’s inception, Cuban intellectuals denounced Mundo Nuevo as “imperialist propaganda” for the U.S. government. Although Monegal insisted on calling Mundo Nuevo “a magazine of dialogue,” it was both financially and ideologically linked to European and American liberalism, which sought, in Arthur Schlesinger’s words, to assert “the ultimate integrity of the individual.” Mundo Nuevo’s stance toward Cuba became evident in editorials against the repression of artists in Cuba, as well as in the publishing of works by writers who found themselves at odds with the cultural politics of the new regime and in the publication of feature articles highlighting the economic failures of the Revolution. I argue that Mundo Nuevo was neither an instrument of “Yankee imperialism”—as Roberto Fernández Retamar called it in Casa de las Américas— nor a disinterested, politically non-committed “magazine of dialogue,” as the journal’s editor often claimed. As much of the material from the archives in the Congress for Cultural Freedom demonstrates, Mundo Nuevo was set up by the Congress as a bulwark against the Cuban Revolution, and used the rhetoric of disinterested, cosmopolitan literature to counter the Revolution’s model of literature engagée. viii Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..1 A Brief Overview of Mundo Nuevo and its Cultural Context ………………………………………………….…………………….....12 Methodological Overview……………………………………………………….19 Chapter One: Genealogy Of A Polemic: Tracing The History Of Mundo Nuevo Through Latin American Literary Magazines...........................................………28 Mundo Nuevo in the Pantheon of Latin American Literary Magazines…………49 From Sur to Mundo Nuevo: The Politics of Cosmopolitan Elitism……………...52 Marcha and Mundo Nuevo: From Uruguay to the World Republic of Letters….65 Lunes de Revolución: Prefiguring Mundo Nuevo in Havana………………….....78 Conclusion: From a Latin American Polemic to an International Boom………..89 Chapter Two: The Congress for Cultural Freedom’s Quest for a New Latin American Magazine of Ideas……………………………………………..91 ix The Congress of Cultural Freedom: From Berlin to “Nuestra América”……….94 The Cultural Cold War Begins at Home………………………………………110 A Latin American Encounter: From Cuadernos to Mundo Nuevo……………..112 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...146 Chapter Three: The Politics of Literary Prestige: Promoting the Latin American “Boom” in the Pages of Mundo Nuevo………………………….......150 Theoretical Framework and Definitions: The Boom as World Literature and Latin America in “International Literary Space”……………….168 Liberal Cosmopolitanism, Dependency Theory, and the Political Construction of the Boom………………………………………………………172 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...185 Chapter Four: From Inside to Outside the Revolution: Mundo Nuevo and Congress for Cultural Freedom’s Response to the Cuban Cultural Policy…………………...188 Setting the Stage for Dissent: Lunes de Revolución versus the Revolution……196 Responding to the Revolution: the CCF and Cuadernos until Mundo Nuevo....202 The Cuban Revolution in the Pages of Mundo Nuevo…………………………209 Mundo Nuevo in the Pages of Casa de las América…………………………....227 Conclusion: Mundo Nuevo and the Failure of Liberalism in the 1960s………………………………………………………………………..…..233 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………239 Vita...................................................................................................................................249 x List of Illustrations and Figures: 1. Cover of Mundo Nuevo………………………………………………………………..17 2. Table of Contents from Mundo Nuevo………………………………………………...18 3. Cover of Primera Plana with Gabriel García Márquez…………………………….....48 4. Cover