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B. Traven

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B. Traven
Ret Marut mug shot taken in London (1923); Ret Marut has been generally accepted as the name used in Germany by the same person who used the name B. Traven in Mexico.
Ret Marut mug shot taken in London (1923); Ret Marut has been generally accepted as the name used in Germany by the same person who used the name B. Traven in Mexico.
OccupationWriter
Notable works
ChildrenRosa Elena Montés de Oca Luján (economist), María Eugenia Montes de Oca Luján[1]

B. Traven (German: [ˈbeː ˈtʁaːvn̩]; Bruno Traven in some accounts) was the pen name of a novelist, presumed to be German, known for his novels on injustice and exploitation around the world, and especially in Mexico. His name, nationality, date and place of birth have been subject to dispute. One certainty about Traven's life is that he lived under the name of Ret Marut in Germany until 1923 and arrived in 1924 in Mexico, where the majority of his fiction is also set—including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927), the film adaptation of which won three Academy Awards in 1949.

Life

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There have been many hypotheses on the paternity of B. Traven, some of them wildly fantastic. It has been generally accepted that Traven is Ret Marut, a German stage actor and anarchist, who edited an anarchist magazine in Germany called Der Ziegelbrenner (The Brick Burner).[2][3] Traven's widow Rosa Elena Luján announced that her husband and Marut were one and the same in a statement after his death in 1969.[4] Marut was a pseudonym possibly related to his real name as well as to Hindu mythology. His career as an actor and later pamphleteer has been traced from 1907 by Rolf Recknagel and in detail by Karl Guthke, his most complete and careful biographer.[5][6]

Of the names suggested for the author, one was traceable to a documented birth. This was Hermann Albert Otto Maximilian Feige, born in Schwiebus in Brandenburg on 23 February 1882. This name and date were given by Marut to the British police in London in 1923 when arrested as an unregistered alien.[7] This name is not plausible because Traven frequently used identity papers borrowed or obtained from friends or acquaintances like the Feige document: a similar borrowed identity document has been found in the Traven archive. The Feige hypothesis has been questioned by the heirs to the B. Traven Estate as the result of a subsequent more plausible revelation. In December 1990 Traven's stepdaughter Maria Eugenia Montes de Oca Luján and her husband Timothy Heyman were told by Gabriel Figueroa, the renowned Mexican cinematographer, one of Traven's closest friends in Mexico (Traven was his son's godfather), that Traven was the illegitimate son of Emil Rathenau, the founder of AEG, and Helen Mareck, an Irish actress and that his name was Moritz Rathenau. Heyman subsequently investigated this revelation and published an article with evidence strongly supporting it in the Mexican magazine Letras Libres on May 2019. An important argument was that both Traven and Ret Marut were anagrams of Moritz Rathenau and he provided other evidence from the Figueroa archive maintained by Gabriel Figueroa Jr., Traven's godson, to support the hypothesis.

Traven's novels and short stories became very popular as early as the interwar period and retained this popularity after the Second World War; they were also translated into many languages. Most of B. Traven's books were published in German first, with their English editions appearing later; nevertheless, the author always claimed that the English versions were the original ones and that the German versions were only their translations. This claim is mostly treated by Traven scholars as a diversion or a joke, although there are those who accept it.[8]

Works

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Vorwärts daily, in which B. Traven's first short story and his first novel were published (front page of the first issue of the newspaper from 1876)

The writer with the pen name B. Traven appeared on the German literary scene in 1925, when the Berlin daily Vorwärts, the organ of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, published the first short story signed with this pseudonym on February 28. Soon, it published Traven's first novel, Die Baumwollpflücker (The Cotton-Pickers), which appeared in installments in June and July of the same year. The expanded book edition was published in May 1926 by the Berlin-based Buchmeister publishing house, which was owned by the left-leaning trade-unions-affiliated book sales club Búchergilde Gutenberg.The title of the first book edition was Der Wobbly, a common name for members of the industrial unionist Industrial Workers of the World; in later editions the original title Die Baumwollpflücker was restored. In the book, Traven introduced for the first time the figure of Gerald Gales (in Traven's other works his name is Gerald Gale or Gerard Gales), an American sailor who looks for a job in different occupations in Mexico, often consorting with suspicious characters and witnessing capitalistic exploitation, nevertheless not losing his will to fight and striving to draw joy from life.[9]

In April ot the same year (1926), Büchergilde Gutenberg, which was Traven's publishing house until 1939, published Das Totenschiff (The Death Ship). The main character of the novel is also Gerard Gales, a sailor who, having lost his documents, virtually forfeits his identity, the right to normal life and a home country and, consequently, is forced to work as a stoker's helper in extremely difficult conditions on board a "death ship" (or coffin ship), which sails on suspicious voyages around the European and African coasts. The novel is an accusation of the greed of capitalist employers and bureaucracy of officials who deport Gale from the countries where he seeks refuge. In the light of findings by Traven's biographers, The Death Ship may be regarded as a novel with autobiographical elements. Assuming that B. Traven is identical with the revolutionary Ret Marut, there is a clear parallel between the fate of Gales and the life of the writer himself, devoid of his home country, who might have been forced to work in a boiler room of a steamer on a voyage from Europe to Mexico.[9][10]

Traven's best known novel is The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, published first in German in 1927 as Der Schatz der Sierra Madre. The book is again set in Mexico, where its main characters are a group of American adventurers and gold seekers. In 1948 the book was filmed under the same title (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) by the Hollywood director John Huston. The film, starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston, was a great critical success, and in 1949 it won three Academy Awards.[9]

The figure of Gerald Gales returned in Traven's next book, The Bridge in the Jungle (Die Brücke im Dschungel), which was serialized in Vorwärts in 1927 and published in an extended book form in 1929. In the novel, Traven first dealt in detail with the question of the First Nations in South and North America and the conflicting values and traditions between white settler cultures and indigenous cultures throughout the Americas; these themes detailing the problems of colonization dominated what became known as the Jungle Novels published in the 1930s.[9][10]

The 1930s are mainly the period in which Traven wrote and published the Jungle Novels – a series of six novels consisting of The Carreta (Der Karren, 1931), Government (Regierung, 1931), March to the Monteria (Der Marsch ins Reich der Caoba, 1933), Trozas (Die Troza, 1936), The Rebellion of the Hanged (Die Rebellion der Gehenkten, 1936), and General from the Jungle (Ein General kommt aus dem Dschungel, with a Swedish translation published in 1939 and the German original in 1940). The novels describe the life of indigenous Mexicans in the state of Chiapas in the early 20th century who are forced to work under inhumane conditions at clearing mahogany in labour camps (monterias) in the jungle; the working and living conditions lead to a rebellion and the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution.[9][10]

Traven's last novel, published in 1960, was Aslan Norval, the story of an American millionairess who is married to an aging businessman and at the same time in love with a young man; she intends to build a canal running across the United States as an alternative for the nuclear arms race and space race. The subject and the language of the novel, which were completely different from the writer's other works, resulted in its rejection for a long time by publishers who doubted Traven's authorship; the novel was accused of being "trivial" and "pornographic". The book was only accepted for publication after its thorough stylistic editing by Johannes Schönherr, who adapted its language to the "Traven style".

Apart from his twelve novels, B. Traven authored many short stories, some of which remain unpublished. Besides the already mentioned Macario, the writer adapted the Mexican legend about The Creation of the Sun and the Moon (Sonnen-Schöpfung, with a Czech translation published in 1934 and the German original in 1936). The first collection of Traven's short stories, entitled Der Busch, appeared in 1928; its second, enlarged edition was published in 1930. From the 1940s onwards many of his short stories also appeared in magazines and anthologies in different languages.[9]

Having been trained in photography by Edward Weston and Tina Modotti, in 1926 Traven was hired as the photographer for an expedition to Chiapas led by Enrique Palacios of the UNAM (Mexican National University) with the purpose of exterminating the locust which plagued the crops of the communities living in the state. After the expedition ended in August, 1926, Traven chose to stay in the state and returned to the state several times in successive years, to study and write about its people. The result was an anthropological book about Chiapas, Land of Springtime (Land des Frühlings) published in 1928 by Büchergilder with 64 photos and captions produced by the author. The book consolidated his pivot from Europe related problems of governance, identity, bureaucracy and capitalism, to the condemnation of the oppression of Mexico's indigenous people. The six jungle novels were the result of his decision to communicate his beliefs and ideals through fiction, just as he had used the Death Ship to express his views on injustice, inequality, capitalism and oppression in the developed world.

Themes

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B. Traven's major writings are classified as adventure novels[11] with proletarian themes.[12][13]

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.[14]

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 racist persecutions of Mexican Indians. These motifs, mainly visible in the Jungle Novels, were unusual 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 civil rights movement in the United States.[10]

Identity

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Supposed portrait of B. Traven (Traven Torsvan, 1926)

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."[15][16]

The German Brockhaus Enzyklopädie devoted an article to him as early as 1934.[17]

See also

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List of works

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Federico Canessi at work on a bust of B. Traven in 1929 in Mexico City
Artist Federico Canessi at work on a bust of B. Traven in 1929 in Mexico City

Stand-alone works

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  • 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[18]
  • 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[19] (English translation published as ebook 2020 ISBN 9780374722135)
  • Stories by the Man Nobody Knows (1961)
  • The Kidnapped Saint and Other Stories (1975)
  • The Creation of the Sun and the Moon (1968)

The Jungle Novels

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Collected stories

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  • 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

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Notable illustrations of works

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  • 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

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References

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Notes

  1. ^ Interview with Rosa Elena Montes de Oca Luján (published Dec 11, 2019, retrieved Aug 9, 2022)
  2. ^ "Marut, Ret: The Early B. Traven - James Goldwasser | libcom.org". libcom.org. Retrieved October 10, 2024.
  3. ^ "The Mystery Of B. Traven". VICE. December 2, 2009. Retrieved October 10, 2024.
  4. ^ Novedades de México, 25 March 1969
  5. ^ "Guide to the Ret Marut and Der Ziegelbrenner collection". www.oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  6. ^ Traven, B.; Marut, Ret (January 1976). Der Ziegelbrenner (in German). Berlin: Guhl Klaus. ISBN 9783882200003.
  7. ^ BBC documentary film B.Traven:A Mystery Solved 1978 and The Man Who Was B.Traven by Will Wyatt. J.Cape 1980
  8. ^ Baumann, Michael L. (1987). "The Question of Idioms in B. Traven's Writings". The German Quarterly. 60 (2): 171–192. doi:10.2307/407249. JSTOR 407249.
  9. ^ a b c d e f "B. Traven's works". Archived from the original on August 19, 2010. Retrieved July 10, 2010.
  10. ^ a b c d Rolf Cantzen. "Die Revolution findet im Roman statt. Der politische Schriftsteller B. Traven (SWR Radio broadcast and its transcript)". Archived from the original on December 21, 2009. Retrieved July 10, 2010.
  11. ^ Schürer & Jenkins 1987, p. 83.
  12. ^ Guthke 1991, p. 71.
  13. ^ Kley, Martin (2012). "Mexico and Weimar's Anti-Authoritarian Socialist Imagination: Storytelling, Working, and 'Unworking' in B. Traven". Modern Language Studies. 41 (2): 16. ISSN 0047-7729. JSTOR 41445163.
  14. ^ 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.
  15. ^ "B. Traven's works". Archived from the original on August 19, 2010. Retrieved July 10, 2010.
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ Helen, Tapio. "B. Traven's Identity Revisited". Archived from the original on December 5, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2008.
  18. ^ "Review of LE VISITEUR DU SOIR". Revue des Deux Mondes (1829-1971): 320. 1967. ISSN 0035-1962. JSTOR 44593294.
  19. ^ 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, 2005, 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

BBC documentary YouTube links below.

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to B. Traven.
Wikiquote has quotations related to B. Traven.

BBC documentary. B.Traven: A Mystery Solved. 1978 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J64Dhd1cxMQ;
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkVnU87f_GQ
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8brIZLj4fG8
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEQnCTwMKUY
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXlcmLCUzEI
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd3osjSZ9yo
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