‘Someone willing to listen to me’ : Anton de Kom’s Wij Slaven van Suriname (1934) and the ‘We’ of Dutch post-colonial literature in African American literary context

In this article, I read Wij Slaven in the context of African American Literature, arguing that Wij Slaven should be read as a challenge to a Dutch master narrative that has excluded De Kom’s book, in similar ways that African American literature influenced an American literary discourse. The Atlantic literary model of intertwining histories and dialogue are themselves part of a characteristic Dutch Atlantic history, encapsulated in De Kom’s inclusive “Wij” as opposed to an “us and them” position. The book’s hybrid form accentuates a particular double consciousness, framed in his maternal-inspired vision of listening. I will analyse versions of a Dutch narrative of innocence and relative benign involvement in slavery, juxtaposing it to literary accounts of Dutch slavery both in Suriname and in North America to demonstrate De Kom’s crucial intervention. Wij Slaven’s literary strategy of intertwining economic, historical, autobiographical, and fictional discourses offers a unique reading of an inclusive, Dutch Atlantic modern literature.