Richard Wright's "Island of Hallucination" and the "Gibson Affair"

Abstract

The "Gibson Affair" marked the height of Cold War paranoia that came to consume the group of black expatriates centered in Paris in the 1950s. In writing of the forgeries and surrounding events that bear his name, Richard Gibson argues that the economy of the scandal was determined as much by the question of political commitment to Algerian independence as it was to the question of affiliations to the United States and its government. The essay combines Gibson's informative memoir with a meditation upon Richard Wright's unpublished roman-a-clef (and only novel set in Paris), Island of Hallucination.