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B. Traven

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B. Traven
Ret Marut mug shot taken in London (1923); Marut is the most popular candidate for Traven's true identity.
Ret Marut mug shot taken in London (1923); Marut is the most popular candidate for Traven's true identity.
OccupationWriter
Notable works
ChildrenRosa Elena Montés de Oca Luján (economist), María Eugenia Montes de Oca Luján[1]

</ref> They tell about exotic travels, outlaw adventurers and Indians; many of their motifs can also be found in Karl May's and Jack London's novels. Unlike much of adventure or Western fiction, Traven's books, however, are not only characterized by a detailed description of the social environment of their protagonists but also by the consistent presentation of the world from the perspective of the "oppressed and exploited". Traven's characters are drawn commonly from the lower classes of society, from the proletariat or lumpenproletariat strata; they are more antiheroes than heroes, and despite that they have this primal vital force which compels them to fight. The notions of "justice" or Christian morality, which are so visible in adventure novels by other authors, for example Karl May, are of no importance here.

Instead, an anarchist element of rebellion often lies at the centre of the novel's action. The hero's rejection of his degrading living conditions frequently serves as motive and broad emphasis is placed upon the efforts of the oppressed to liberate themselves. Apart from that, there are virtually no political programmes in Traven's books; his clearest manifesto may be the general anarchist demand "¡Tierra y Libertad!" in the Jungle Novels. Professional politicians, including ones who sympathize with the left, are usually shown in a negative light, if shown at all. Despite this, Traven's books are par excellence political works. Although the author does not offer any positive programme, he always indicates the cause of suffering of his heroes. This source of suffering, deprivation, poverty and death is for him capitalism, personified in the deliberations of the hero of The Death Ship as Caesar Augustus Capitalismus.[2] Traven's criticism of capitalism is, however, free of blatant moralizing. Dressing his novels in the costume of adventure or western literature, the writer seeks to appeal to the less educated, and first of all to the working class.

In his presentation of oppression and exploitation, Traven did not limit himself to the criticism of capitalism; in the centre of his interest there were rather racial persecutions of Mexican Indians. These motifs, which are mainly visible in the Jungle Novels, were a complete novelty in the 1930s. Most leftist intellectuals, despite their negative attitude to European and American imperialism, did not know about or were not interested in persecution of natives in Africa, Asia or South America. It has been argued that Traven deserves credit for drawing public attention to these questions, long before anti-colonial movements and struggle for civil rights of black people in the United States.[3]

Identity

Supposed portrait of B. Traven (Traven Torsvan, 1926)
Main article: Identity of B. Traven

Traven submitted his works himself or through his representatives for publication from Mexico to Europe by post and gave a Mexican post office box as his return address. The copyright holder named in his books was "B. Traven, Tamaulipas, Mexico". Neither the European nor the American publishers of the writer ever met him personally or, at least, the people with whom they negotiated the publication and later also the filming of his books always maintained they were only Traven's literary agents; the identity of the writer himself was to be kept secret. This reluctance to offer any biographical information was explained by B. Traven in words which were to become one of his best-known quotations: "The creative person should have no other biography than his works."[4][5]

The non-vanity and non-ambition claimed by Traven was no humble gesture, Jan-Christoph Hauschild writes:

By deleting his former names Feige and Marut, he extinguished his hitherto existences and created a new one, including a suitable story of personal descent. Traven knew that values like credibility and authenticity were effective criteria in the literary matters he dealt with and that he needed to consider them. Above all, his performance was self-fulfilment, and after that the creation of an artist. Even as Ret Marut he played parts on stage but also in the stalls and in real life, so he equipped and coloured them with adequate and fascinating stories of personal descent till they became a spleeny mixture of self-discovery, self-invention, performance and masquerade. It seems indisputable that Traven's hide-and-seek manners became progressively obsessive; although we have to consider that self-presentation is irrevocable. This turned into a trap because he was no longer able to expose his true vita without appearing as a show-off.[6]

Although the popularity of the writer was still rising – the German Brockhaus Enzyklopädie devoted an article to him as early as 1934[7] – B. Traven remained a mysterious figure. Literary critics, journalists and others were trying to discover the author's identity and were proposing more or less credible, sometimes fantastic, hypotheses.

List of works

B. Traven – Stand-alone works

  • The Cotton-Pickers (1926; retitled from The Wobbly) ISBN 1-56663-075-4
  • The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927; first English pub. 1935) ISBN 0-8090-0160-8
  • The Death Ship: The Story of an American Sailor (1926; first English pub. 1934) ISBN 1-55652-110-3
  • The White Rose (1929; first full English pub 1979) ISBN 0-85031-370-8
  • The Night Visitor and Other Stories (English pub. 1967) ISBN 1-56663-039-8[8]
  • The Bridge in the Jungle (1929; first English pub. 1938) ISBN 1-56663-063-0
  • Land des Frühlings (1928) – travel book – untranslated
  • Aslan Norval (1960) ISBN 978-3-257-05016-5[9] – untranslated
  • Stories by the Man Nobody Knows (1961)
  • The Kidnapped Saint and Other Stories (1975)
  • The Creation of the Sun and the Moon (1968)

B. Traven – The Jungle Novels

B. Traven – Collected stories

  • Canasta de cuentos mexicanos (or Canasta of Mexican Stories, 1956, Mexico City, translated from the English by Rosa Elena Luján) ISBN 968-403-320-6

Films based on works by B. Traven

Notable illustrations of works by B. Traven

  • Dödsskeppet (The Death Ship), Atlantis, Stockholm 1978, and Het dodenschip, Meulenhoff, Amsterdam 1978. Inkdrawings by the Swedish artist Torsten Billman. Unpublished in English.

Works by Ret Marut

References

Notes

  1. ^ Interview with Rosa Elena Montes de Oca Luján (published Dec 11, 2019, retrieved Aug 9, 2022)
  2. ^ B. Traven, The Death Ship, p. 119, quoted from: Richard E. Mezo, A study of B. Traven's fiction: the journey to Solipaz, Mellen Research University Press, San Francisco, 1993, p. 20.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference SWR was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "B. Traven's works". Archived from the original on August 19, 2010. Retrieved July 10, 2010.
  5. ^ The writer also expressed this thought in another famous quotation: "If one cannot get to know the human through his works, then either the human is worthless, or his works are worthless." (Wenn der Mensch in seinen Werken nicht zu erkennen ist, dann ist entweder der Mensch nichts wert oder seine Werke sind nichts wert.) Quotation from: Günter Dammann (ed.), B. Travens Erzählwerk in der Konstellation von Sprache und Kulturen, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005, p. 311.
  6. ^ Jan-Christoph Hauschild, B. Traven – die unbekannten Jahre, Zürich: Edition Voldemeer, 2012.
  7. ^ Tapio Helen: "B. Traven's Identity Revisited". Archived from the original on December 5, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  8. ^ "Review of LE VISITEUR DU SOIR". Revue des Deux Mondes (1829-1971): 320. 1967. ISSN 0035-1962. JSTOR 44593294.
  9. ^ Jannach, Hubert (1961). "Review of Aslan Norval". Books Abroad. 35 (1): 59. doi:10.2307/40115388. ISSN 0006-7431. JSTOR 40115388.

Bibliography

  • Baumann, Michael L. B. Traven: An introduction, ISBN 978-0-8263-0409-4
  • Baumann, Michael L. Mr. Traven, I Presume?, AuthorHouse, online 1997, ISBN 1-58500-141-4
  • Chankin, Donald O. Anonymity and Death: The Fiction of B. Traven, ISBN 978-0-271-01190-5
  • Czechanowsky, Thorsten. 'Ich bin ein freier Amerikaner, ich werde mich beschweren'. Zur Destruktion des American Dream in B. Travens Roman 'Das Totenschiff' ' , in: Jochen Vogt/Alexander Stephan (Hg.): Das Amerika der Autoren, München: Fink 2006.
  • Czechanowsky, Thorsten. Die Irrfahrt als Grenzerfahrung. Überlegungen zur Metaphorik der Grenze in B. Travens Roman 'Das Totenschiff' in: mauerschau 1/2008, pp. 47–58.
  • Dammann, Günter (ed.), B. Travens Erzählwerk in der Konstellation von Sprache und Kulturen, Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 2005; ISBN 3-8260-3080-X
  • Giacopini, Vittorio. L'arte dell'inganno, Fandango libri 2001 (in Italian) ISBN 978-88-6044-191-1
  • Guthke, Karl Siegfried (1991). B. Traven: The Life Behind the Legends. Translation of: B. Traven. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 978-1-55652-132-4. OCLC 22906396.
  • Guthke, Karl S. B. Traven. Biografie eines Rätsels, Frankfurt am Main, Büchergilde Gutenberg, 1987, ISBN 3-7632-3268-0
  • Guthke, Karl S. "Das Geheimnis um B. Traven entdeckt" – und rätselvoller denn je, Frankfurt am Main, Büchergilde Gutenberg, 1984, ISBN 3-7632-2877-2
  • Hauschild, Jan-Christoph: B. Traven – Die unbekannten Jahre. Edition Voldemeer, Zürich / Springer, Wien, New York 2012, ISBN 978-3-7091-1154-3.
  • Hauschild, Jan-Christof: Das Phantom: Die fünf Leben des B. Traven. Edition Tiamat 2018
  • Heidemann, Gerd. Postlagernd Tampico. Die abenteuerliche Suche nach B. Traven, München, Blanvalet, 1977, ISBN 3-7645-0591-5
  • Mezo, Richar Eugene. A study of B. Traven's fiction – the journey to Solipaz, San Francisco, Mellen Research University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-7734-9838-9
  • Pateman, Roy. The Man Nobody Knows: The Life and Legacy of B. Traven, ISBN 978-0-7618-2973-7
  • Raskin, Jonah, My Search for B. Traven, ISBN 978-0-416-00741-1
  • Recknagel, Rolf. B. Traven. Beiträge zur Biografie, Köln, Röderberg Verlag, 1991, ISBN 978-3-87682-478-9
  • Schürer, Ernst; Jenkins, Philip (1987). B. Traven: Life and Work. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-00382-5.
  • Stone, Judy, The Mystery of B. Traven, ISBN 978-0-595-19729-3.
  • Thunecke, Jörg (ed.) B. Traven the Writer / Der Schriftsteller B. Traven, Edition Refugium: Nottingham 2003, ISBN 0-9542612-0-8, ISBN 0-9506476-5-9, ISBN 978-0-9506476-5-4
  • Wyatt, Will. The Secret of the Sierra Madre: The Man who was B. Traven, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1985, ISBN 978-0-15-679999-7

External links

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