In this Book

Forgotten Friendships: Yugoslavia and the Anticolonial Francophone World

Book
Alexandra Perišic
2025
Published by: Amherst College Press
summary

Forgotten Friendships: Yugoslavia and the Anticolonial Francophone World examines transnational friendships and alliances between intellectuals from Yugoslavia and the Francophone African and Caribbean world during the mid-twentieth century. The book argues that transnational political friendships helped shape major intellectual movements like Négritude, African socialism, and global socialist feminisms, which surged beyond national, regional, and even diasporic spaces. Blending archival research, literary analysis, and biography, the book fills a significant gap in our understanding of how intellectuals from the Global South and the socialist world collaborated on shared goals of decolonization, anti-racism, and socialist worldmaking.

Forgotten Friendships emphasizes the ways in which writers, intellectuals, and activists envisioned alternative futures rooted in collaboration across peripheries. Personal bonds of friendship were not mere footnotes to the anti-colonial struggle, but vital political tools for rethinking global solidarity.

Table of Contents

Cover

Half-Title Page, Title page, Dedication, Copyright

Contents

pp. vii-viii

List of Figures

pp. ix

Acknowledgments

pp. x-xi

Preface

pp. xiii-xiv

Introduction: Revolutionary Friendships

pp. 1-25

1. Across Peripheries: Aimé Césaire and the Balkan Genesis of the Cahier

pp. 26-52

2. A Tale of Poets and Politicians: Léopold Sédar Senghor, African Socialism, and Yugoslav Federalism

pp. 53-82

3. Laying Tracks, Crafting Narratives: René Depestre’s Yugoslav Journey and Its Literary Echoes

pp. 83-110

4. Non-Aligned Networks: Aoua Kéita, Yugoslav Women, and Global Socialist Feminisms

pp. 111-135

5. Revolution in Focus: Zdravko Pečar, Dragan Savić, and Veda Zagorac in Algeria

pp. 136-163

Epilogue: The Oasis of Friendship

pp. 164-169

Notes

pp. 170-212

Bibliography

pp. 213-228
Back To Top