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Creator
Transcription Centre (London)
Call number
Sc MIRS Transcription 1972
Physical description
108 audio_recordings
Language
Multiple languages; English, French, Hausa, and Swahili.
Preferred Citation
Transcription Centre Interviews with African Writers audio collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, The New York Public Library
Sponsor
An anonymous donor funded preliminary processing for this collection. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported a research library-wide grant for the digitization, and funded the Schomburg for the description and production of the finding aid as part of The Next Century of Black Studies Project.
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
Access to materials
Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.

The London-based Transcription Centre was a cultural organization that produced and recorded audio interviews and programs related to arts and culture in Africa and across the African diaspora. The Transcription Centre Interviews with African Writers audio collection consists of 108 audio interviews and programs recorded between 1962 and 1970. Featuring African, African American, and West Indian writers, artists, scholars, politicians, musicians, and other significant cultural figures, the recordings focus on African literature, art, history, politics, culture, and contemporary issues. The organization was later discovered to be funded by a CIA front organization.

Biographical/historical information

The London-based Transcription Centre (1962-1977), also known as Transcription Feature Service, was a cultural organization headed by British academic Dennis Duerden, a former BBC employee who also taught in Nigeria. The Transcription Centre produced radio programs on topics related to African literature, art, history, politics, culture, and other contemporary issues. These programs were created for sale, distribution, and broadcast around the world, especially in newly independent countries in Africa and the Caribbean.

Lewis Nkosi, a South African London-based writer, critic, and journalist, produced many of these programs; among them, the weekly program Africa Abroad (1962-1966). Other programs included African Writers Talking, an interview series; and Cultural Events in Africa, a news program dedicated to cultural activities in Africa.

These radio shows featured a wide array of African, African American, and West Indian artists, musicians, politicians, scholars, writers, and other significant cultural figures. They often combined interviews with African or West Indian artists or writers passing through London with a lively mix of review pieces and performances. The Centre developed into a hub for many African and West Indian writers, artists, and intellectuals, as well as those escaping political suppression in their home countries, such as the Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. Over the years, the Centre's activities broadened to include the production of films for television, music, and the sponsorship of art exhibitions, concerts, theater, and wide-ranging discussions on many contemporary topics. The Transcription Centre also sponsored the first African Writers Conference held in Kampala, Uganda in 1962; the Mbari Club in Ibadan, Nigeria; and prominent African news journals such as Black Orpheus in Nigeria, and Transition in Uganda.

What the participants didn't know at the time was that the Transcription Centre was funded by the Paris-based Congress for Cultural Freedom, which served as a front for the United States's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Cold War. This was revealed in April, 1966 by the New York Times, which ran a series of five articles on the purposes and methods of the CIA, one of which detailed several false-front organizations funded by the agency.

The Transcription Centre's most vital years were from 1962 to 1968. It closed in 1977 (although some sources say 1975) due in part to funding issues. During its course, and despite its being compromised by the CIA, the Transcription Centre provided significant contributions to African literature and scholarship, welcoming some of the most renowned authors, artists, and thinkers of the African diaspora.

Scope and arrangement

The collection consists of 108 audio items recorded between 1962 and 1970. Since the collection's original formats are audio cassettes, many of the items contain two parts, one for each side of the cassette. They are arranged in sequence by item classmark: Sc Audio C-001 to Sc Audio C-108. This arrangement is largely chronological, and based on the corresponding index The Transcription Centre catalogue of tapes, African and Afro-american studies.The collection includes interviews with African, African American, and West Indian artists, musicians, politicians, scholars, writers, and other significant cultural figures on a variety of topics related to African literature, art, history, culture, politics, and contemporary issues. The collection also includes discussions; review pieces and comments; performances, which are referred to as radio plays; readings from novels, plays, and poetry; feature programs; and recorded music. Some interviews are conducted in French. Additionally, there are recordings in Swahili and Hausa of special programs and translated plays by African writers.

Each item's scope and content note lists the interviewees in the order in which they appear on the recording. When interviewees are identified and known, a brief biography is included.

African and West Indian authors interviewed in this collection include: William E. Abraham, Peter Abrahams, Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo, Muhammad al-Fayturi, Al-Tijani Yusuf Bashir, T.M. Aluko, Elechi Amadi, Jawa Apronti, Khadambi Asalache, Kofi Awoonor, Solomon Adeboye Babalola, Lindsay Barrett, Gaston Bart-Williams, Timothy Bazzarabusa, Olympe Bhêly-Quénum, Mongo Beti, Dennis Brutus, Jan Carew, Vincent Chukwuemeka, John Pepper Clark, Peter Clarke, William Farquar Conton, Joe de Graft, Clarkson de Majoni, Michael Francus Dei-Anang, Mbella Sonne Dipoko, Beresford During, Sarif Easmon, Obi Egbuna, Cyprian Ekwensi, Femi Euba, Athol Fugard, Abayomi Fuja, Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin, Musa Haji Ismail Galal, Nadine Gordimer, Alfred Hutchinson, Noni Jabavu, Dan Jacobson, Dr. Eldred D. Jones, Aubrey Kachingwe, Joseph Kariuki, Legson Kayira, Albert Kayper-Mensah, Mazisi Kunene, Duro Ladipo, Alex La Guma, Camara Laye, Arthur Maimane, Rev. John Mbiti, Sebastian Okechukwu Mezu, Bloke Modisane, Ellis A. Money, Ezekiel Mphalele, Reuel John Mugo Gatheru, John Munyonye, John Nagenda, Rajat Neogy, Djibril Tamsir Niane, Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo, Elimo Njau, Ngumbu Njujuri, Kenneth Nkhata, Lewis Nkosi, Nkem Nwankwo, Donatus Nwoga, Onuora Nzekwu, Clara Ogdubesan, Wale Ogunyemi, Gabriel Okara, Christopher Okigbo, Yambo Ouologuem, Guillaume Oyono-Mbia, Frank Parkes, Okot p'Bitek, Lenrie Peters, Ralphina Phillott, Cosmo Pieterse, Barry Reckord, Richard Rive, Cyril Rogers-Wright, Neville Rubin, David Rubadiri, Andrew Salkey, Robert Serumaga, Mrs. Zulu Sofola, Wole Soyinka, Efua Sutherland, Amos Tutuola, Solomon Unoh, and Tchikaya U'Tamsi.

African American authors interviewed include James Baldwin and Langston Hughes.

European and other non-African authors interviewed include: Ulli Beier, Lalage Bown, Tone Brulin, Basil Davidson, Ernest Gellner, Barbara Kimenye, Gerhard Kubik, Jean Margaret Laurence, Gerald Moore, Henry Francis Morris, Gerd Meur, John Reed, and Clive Wake.

African musicians interviewed include: Saka Acquaye, I.K. Dairo, Abdullah Ibrahim, Ben Kalanzi, Barba Karnute, Miriam Makeba, Todd Matshikiza, and Eli "Lucky" Thompson.

African artists interviewed include: Albert Adams, Frances Ademola, Jimo Akolo, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Erhabor Emokpae, Yusuf Grillo, Festus Idehen, Henry Lumu, Gregory Maloba, Mrs. Albert Metzger, Ramji Mustafa, Selby Mvusi, Lionel Ngakane, Demas Nwoko, Lloyd Reckord, and Dennis Williams.

Prominent African and West Indian political figures interviewed include: Phyllis Altman, Charles Binaisa, Paul Lazaro Bomani, Amilcar Cabral, Umaru Dikko, Bernard Fonlon, Frene Ginwala, Abdullah Kassim Hanga, Rita Hinden, Amir H. Jamal, C.L.R. James, Oscar Kambona, Simon Kapwepwe, Tom Kellock, Dr. Julius Gokonyo Kiano, Kirunda Kiueginja, Fanuel J. Kozonguizi, Michael Kwalya Kagwa, Mr. Abu Mayanja-Nkanji, Govan Mbeki, Tom Mboya, Aaron Milner, Eduarde Mondlane, Jason Moyo, Simpson Victor Mtambanengwe, Peter Mugerwa, Ronald Ngala, George Nyandoro, Washington Okumu, Charles Patterson, Robert Resha, Salim Ahmed Salim, and Nelson Samkange.

Prominent African scholars interviewed include: Bethwell Allan, Sir Eric Ashby, Julian Beinart, David Cook, Edris Makward, Ali Mazrui, Roland Oliver, Dr. J. Saunders Redding, Bereket Habte Selassie, and Ivan Van Sertima.

The collection also includes additional contributors who are not named above.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Transcription Feature Service, 1972.

Processing information

Collection inventoried by Anika Paris. Collection processed and described by Ornella U. Baganizi and Anika Paris, archivists; and Shola Lynch, curator. Finding aid published in 2024.

Related Material

Transcripts of some interviews contained in: African writers talking; a collection of interviews edited by Dennis Duerden & Cosmo Pieterse, Sc 820.9-D or Sc 820.9-P.

The Transcription Centre catalogue of tapes, African and Afro-american studies, Sc 016.96-T (Transcription Centre catalogue of tapes).

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Third Floor

Access to materials

Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.

Other finding aid

The University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center holds The Transcription Centre Records, a collection of scripts and manuscripts, correspondence, legal documents, business records, ephemera, photographs, and clippings. Electronic finding aid available: https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00447.