Last of the Conquerors

Last of the Conquerors is the 1948 debut novel by African-American journalist and editor William Gardner Smith.[1][2]

First edition (publ. Farrar, Straus)

The novel concerns the author's experience as an African-American GI serving in the racially segregated United States Army in US-occupied Germany after World War II.[1] The protagonist, Hayes Dawkins, has an affair with Ilse, a white German woman. He and Ilse struggle against racist Army officers and policies to sustain a relationship that some white soldiers condemn (although there are also many friendly whites who help them).

Last of the Conquerors depicts post-Nazi Germany as more racially tolerant than the United States. While this depiction may or may not be accurate, Smith's novel is offering a critique of Marshall Plan rhetoric claiming that American society should be a model for the world, while African-Americans continued to suffer under the Jim Crow system at home and in the military (an inconsistency noticed by many other writers, American and German, at the time).

References
  1. Weik von Mossner, Alexa. "Last of the Conquerors". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 August 2009 accessed 20 September 2015.
  2. Campbell, James (2006-01-07). "The story behind Richard Wright's last novel". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-10-12.


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