B. Traven

(1882 - 1969)

The pseudonymous author of a dozen German-language novels, including The Death Ship and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, B. Traven has been identified variously as the Bavarian revolutionary Ret Marut, a Prussian named Otto Feige, and the illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm II. He also wrote a series of six works known as the Jungle Novels, which trace a group of exploited Indians in Chiapas prior to the start of the Mexican Revolution. The reclusive author was, the poet Kenneth Rexroth wrote, “the first, and still the greatest, novelist of total disengagement.”