The Death Ship

The greatest of Traven’s works, it is a good-humored but devastating attack on bureaucracy and the state * Los Angeles Times *
B. Traven is coming to be recognized as one of the narrative masters of the twentieth century * New York Times Book Review *
Traven’s philosophical anarchism, his disengagement, his scorn for regimentation and material goods and his love of individual liberty and the primitive past could, conceivably, command as much reverence form the new generation as does Henry David Thoreau * Los Angeles Times *
He tells his story better than the best storytellers; delves deeper into characters than most so-called psychological writers. All the virility, terseness and tension that Hemingway worked so hard for…seem to be Traven’s by birthright * Books and Bookmen *
Traven was above all a passionate defender of the victims of society, a man who hated injustice… His books were marvellous affirmations of his faith in the beaten man and his stories were permeated with a great and single-minded vision – John Huston

Little is known for certain about the life of B. Traven. He was a prolific writer best known for his beloved adventure novel The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and the Jungle Novels, a series set during and after the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, with proletarian, anarchist themes.

During his lifetime, he was variously (and incorrectly) identified as the son of Kaiser Wilhelm I, or a North German brickmaker. It is now believed that he was born Moritz Rathenau in Germany in 1882, the illegitimate son of Emil Rathenau, the founder of AEG, and Helen Mareck, an Irish actress. He lived for some time as Ret Marut, a merchant seaman, actor, journalist, and politician. He left Germany in 1923 after having been sentenced to death for his part in the Bavarian Revolution.

Traven arrived in Mexico in 1924, where he dedicated himself to writing full-time. He married Rosa Elena Lujan in 1957 and died in Mexico City in 1969.

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