B Traven, mysterious author

1882 (allegedly; March 5 is also given by some sources) B Traven (d. March 26, 1969?), author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. This is just a guess, as his identity and date of birth are still unknown.

His other novels were ignored for many years in North America, while his work was being acclaimed internationally and translated into numerous languages.

Traven wrote numerous other novels, which include The Death Ship and the epic Jungle Novel series, which is a description of Government corruption, and an Indian uprising set at the birth of the Mexican revolution. The Jungle novels include Government, The Carreta, March to the Monteria, Trozas, The Rebellion of the Hanged, and The General from the Jungle and powerfully portray the human basis of the Mexican revolution. As of 2005, some works are still awaiting translation from German to English.

Until recently, very little was known about the man himself; it was not even clear whether he was German or merely wrote in the language. It is clear from the descriptions in his novels that he must have at least travelled extensively (if not lived) in Europe, the United States and Mexico.

On the basis of comparing writing styles, it has been suggested that Traven was a pseudonym for the German anarchist Ret Marut, who published an underground magazine in the last years of the Weimar Republic ...

Categories: literature, mexico, american-literature