Culture in transition: Rajat Neogy’s transition (1961–1968) and the decolonization of African literature

Transition, the Ugandan literary magazine edited by Rajat Neogy, sought to create an autonomous East African culture in the aftermath of decolonization. Publishing leading intellectuals and writers on the continent including Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ali Mazrui, and Es’kia Mphahlele, neither the outgoing imperialists nor Milton Obote’s overbearing nationalist regime were exempt its challenge. Neogy’s imprisonment for sedition in 1968 consolidated the magazine’s resistant position. However, the case of Transition also raises larger questions about the relationship between politics and print. Bringing into view the liberal institutions that funded and protected such ventures in the decolonizing world, notably the Congress for Cultural Freedom but also Amnesty International, Transition asks important questions about how we conceive of resistance in the long twentieth century.