This volume contains the revised and updated contributions to the third (London, 1994) and fourth (Stockholm, 1998) international Traven conferences. As Thunecke notes in his long introduction, the focus here is on Traven the writer rather than, as was so often the case in the past, on speculations concerning the origin and identity, of the author. It is now generally accepted that Traven was formerly Ret Marut, an actor who turned writer before World War One, fled Munich when the Räterepublik was overthrown in 1919, and eventually emigrated to Mexico to elude the authorities where he transformed himself into B .Traven. Just who Marut (name or pseudonym) was, when and where he was born, and why exactly he emigrated to Mexico are questions that remain unresolved
Archival research in the Marut Nachlass at Riverside, CA (see Berger) has produced new findings documenting Marut's turn to (short) fiction between 1910 and 1913(Goldwasser), his surprisingly anti-colonial stance in the unpublished novel Die Fackel des Fürsten (Thunecke), but also his patriotic treatment of WWI in unpublished stories contrasting with his sharp criticism in Der Ziegelbrenner (Müssener). Schürer believes that Marut wrote the Urfassung of Traven's Das Totenschiff (1926) in Brixton Prison in London in 1923/24 and agrees with previous scholars (Guthke, Boehnke) that Traven reverses the scheme of Abenteuerliteratur and the English sea novel.
Tschörtner presents unpublished letters from the years 1927/28 to Johannes Schönherr concerning the publication of Land des Frühlings (1928) by the Büchergilde Gutenberg in Berlin, while Zogbaum considers the influence of the American sociologist Frank Tannenbaum, whom Traven met during his first trip to Chiapas in 1926. Nordhausen corrects and supplements Zogbaum (B. Traven: Vision of Mexico, 1992) who did not have access to the Traven Archives in Mexico City. These archives contain previously unknown letters and two diaries of 1926 suggesting that Traven may have visited Chiapas twice that year.
Fischer uses Herder' s and Fichte' s concepts of nation and revolution to analyze Traven's vision the Indian (worker) as the new Mexican. Hanffstengel discusses translation problems in the first Spanish edition (1996), delayed no doubt by the continuing sensitivity to Traven' s sharp criticism of conditions which still exist today in Chiapas.
Olafson suggests that Western motifs in The Cotton-Pickers (1928) were influenced by pulp Westerns and "B" Western films, while Nordhausen traces the initiation or rebirth motif in Traven's early work of 1926-30. Ludszuweit discusses the problem of "internalized colonization" in essays, stories, Land des Frühlings, and Der Karren (1925-31); Koepke considers the jungle novels as an epic cycle whose conception replaces that of individual psychological or dramatic novels; and Miissener examines the role of White, Mexican, and Indian women in Traven's Mexican novels (1928-40).
Eigenheer considers the generic classification of five early novels, written 1926-29 and concludes that they cannot be labeled as Arbeiter- or Abenteuer- or Trivialliteratur, without suggesting, however, any alternative classification. Koepke analyzes the often overlooked humor and satire of miscommunication in Die Weiße Rose (1929) and the jungle cycle, Thunecke contrasts the dystopian utopia in Traven's Regierung (1931) with the utopian dystopy of London's The lron Heel (1907), and Olafson examines Wobblies, anarcho-syndicalists, and revolutionists in The Cotton-Pickers and the jungle novels and suggests John Kenneth Turner' s Barbarous Mexico (1910) as a possible influence on Traven's interest in the debt-slavery system in pre-Revolutionary Mexico.
Lübbe reviews the role of Josef Wieder and Johannes Schönherr in the publication of Traven's last novel Aslan Norval (1960), confirming that the author's literary talent had significantly declined since 1940.
Guthke presents previously unknown letters to Traven's British publisher Chatto & Windus, and to Sanora Babb and James Wong Howe in Hollywood, revealing Traven's intensive but unsuccessful efforts to promote his works in England and America. Schulte traces the influence . of Traven on the German exile writer Jonny Rieger (1908-85) , who was convinced as early as 1947 that Traven was Marut but subsequently denied it, even in his obituary for Traven. Tschörtner views later revisions of Traven ' s stories, confirming that they do not improve the original versions , and Treverton concludes the volume with a preliminary survey of the states and issues of Traven German first editions. It is regrettable that these 25 essays from 1994 and 1998 {six of which have already appeared elsewhere) appear only in 2003.
Nevertheless, the volume makes a valuable contribution to Traven scholarship. The essays on archival work (esp. those Joerg Thunecke and Nordhausen), the well-written essays by Koepke, and Thunecke's introduction (esp concerning Linn Gale and Traven' s plagiarism in Der Busch) are particularly recommended.
© 2005; Internationale B. Traven Gesellschaft e.V.