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Lotus was a trilingual political and cultural magazine which existed between 1968 and 1991. The magazine with three language editions was published in different countries: Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia and German Democratic Republic. It contained one of the early postcolonial literary criticisms employing non-Eurocentric modes.[1]
The first issue of the magazine appeared in March 1968 with the title Afro-Asian Writings.[2][3] The magazine was established by the Afro-Asian Writers' Association (AAWA).[4][5] Its foundation was first proposed at the Association's inaugural meeting held in Tashkent, Soviet Union, in 1958.[6] The goal of the magazine was to support the Afro-Asian solidarity and nonalignment which had been stated in the Bandung Conference in 1955.[7] It was published on a quarterly basis and had three language editions: Arabic, English, and French.[2][8] Of them the English edition was started first[9] and the Arabic edition was initially headquartered in Cairo.[10] The other two were published in the German Democratic Republic.[11][12] The magazine was financed by Egypt, the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic.[11] In 1970 the magazine was renamed as Lotus with the subtitle Afro-Asian Writings[2] from the sixth issue.[9][13] The permanent bureau of the AAWA in Cairo was its publisher until 1973.[1]
Lotus contained the sections of "studies", "short stories", "poetry", "art", "book reviews" and "documents.[9] The first issue of the magazine featured an article by Léopold Sédar Senghor and Yusuf Sibai, founding editor of the magazine, which was about the meaning of the African identity.[14] The magazine published the text of a talk by Ghassan Kanafani on resistance literature presented at the Soviet-sponsored Afro-Asian Writers' Association conference held in Beirut in March 1967.[15]
On 18 February 1978 Yusuf Sibai was assassinated in Nicosia, Cyprus,[16] and Pakistani writer Faiz Ahmad Faiz assumed the post.[4][12] He remained as the editor of the Lotus until his death in 1984[12] and was succeeded by Ziyad Abdel Fattah in the post.[17] Fattah edited the magazine until its closure.[9]
The headquarters of the Arabic edition was in Cairo until October 1978 and was moved to Beirut following the sign of the Camp David Accords.[6][11] In Beirut the Union of Palestinian Writers published the magazine which remained there until the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.[11] Then the magazine together with the Palestine Liberation Organization moved to Tunis, Tunisia, but soon after was relocated to Cairo.[4][11] The English and French editions of the magazine disappeared in the mid-1980s.[7] The Arabic edition of Lotus folded in 1991[2] after the collapse of the Soviet Union ending its financial support.[13][18]
Contributors
Although the contributors were mostly Arab writers from Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria and Sudan who were the members of the Afro-Asian Writers' Association,[5] there were also non-Arab editors from various countries, including Pakistan, Senegal, South Africa, Japan, India, Mongolia and the Soviet Union.[4] Major contributors of Lotus included Mahmoud Darwish, Ghassan Kanafani, Samih Al Qasim,[19] Adunis, Edward El Kharrat, Mulk Raj Anand, Ousmane Sembène, Alex La Guma, Hiroshi Noma, Anatoly Sofronov, Ahmed Sékou Touré and Agostinho Neto.[4]
Views and legacy
Lotus billed itself as a "militant" periodical opposing the "cultural imperialism" and attempting to achieve a "revolution of construction."[9] Its contributors considered the 20 century as a period of the new colonialism which made use of the commodification of culture accompanied by the expansion of the global marketplace.[3] They opposed the economic imperialism which had penetrated into the cultural sphere.[3] The magazine fully supported the view that the Soviet Union should be modeled by other nations in that it achieved a cultural and social condition which minority groups and their cultural heritage were respected.[18] It was also argued that the Soviet Union had higher levels of educational and economic development, gender equality and respect for artists.[18]
Lotus paid a special attention to the Vietnamese and Palestinian writing and emphasized the similarity between them in terms of revolutionary movements.[1]
Some issues of the Arabic edition have been archived at American University of Beirut.[4]
In 2016 a magazine with the same title was launched by the Association of African, Asian and Latin American Writers in Lebanon.[2]
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