ABSTRACT
William Gardner Smith connected the French scene of expatriates with the growing black and "third world" revolutions in Africa and Asia. Williamson states that during the Cold War, Deep South southerners became the most loyal of Americans, inferring, once again, that white racists attempted to link the struggle for black human rights in America with communist inspired aggression. After the death of Richard Wright, William Gardner Smith became "the acknowledged dean of expatriate writers" in France, according to Stanley Schatt. Smith was also an important transitional writer who best embodied how black writers began to shift attention away from post-War European expatriation toward identifying more with an African and Asian perspective. When Smith returned from Germany, he became a minor celebrity in Philadelphia, notably after publication of his first novel (Conquerors). Smith's was the first black American expatriate to treat the subject of French racism towards Algerians and North Africans, and the effects of the Algerian war on France.
