My Search for B. Traven

by Jonah Raskin

Very near fine in a like dustjacket. Hardcover first edition - New Methuen,, (1980). Hardcover first edition -. Very near fine in a like dustjacket.. First printing. Rather than a biography of B. Traven, the reclusive author best known for 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' this is an attempt to unearth his identity, He died in 1969 in Mexico City where he had been living under the name of Hal Croves. Raskin had been invited by Traven's widow to come to Mexico and write his biography; he lived in her house for a year gathering material but the essential mystery of who he had been still remained. Newspaper articles laid in. 249 pp.

249 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Jonah Raskin is Chair of Communications at Sonoma State University and produces the website radicaljacklondon.com.

Reviews

[James Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

B. Traven's life was a mystery and this frank, earnest, even witty probe into the origins of the phantom novelist is no less inconclusive than other attempts to limn the life of the author who died still incognito in 1969. In 1975, Raskin was encouraged by Traven's widow, Rosa Elena Lujan, to visit her in Mexico City and with her write an authorized biography. Raskin found the Traven home to be a mausoleum where the clock in Traven's study had been stopped at the moment of his death--a museum of relics and artifacts, manuscripts, international editions of his works, and so on. Rosa Elena turned out to be as unintentionally obscuring as Traven himself; she was a social creature with no head for the sustained work of a biography, and yet eagerly poured out her conflicting stories as if each bit of confusion was equal in the Traven canon: "You know enough, and what you don't know I'll fill in," she told Raskin. So here again is mystery upon mystery. Traven's name may have been Ret Marut (his persona as a German actor-anarchist), though he had more than twenty aliases. In a life that seems not unlike that of the seaman Gerard Gales, protagonist in his first novel Death Ship, he tried unsuccessfully to "reestablish" American citizenship during World War I, claiming variously to have been born in San Francisco and Chicago. More glamorous is the story of his being the illegitimate child of Kaiser Wilhelm II, whose picture hung in Traven's study. Raskin interviews acquaintances, each with his ax to grind about the elusive Traven, reads both the Traven correspondence and his notebooks; and even awakes one morning to find his numb arm turned into Traven's. But he decides finally that the only way to understand the sacred mystery of Traven is to study "the incorruptible treasure" in his books. It is an engaging and readable attempt to breach the veil of the mystery that is B. Traven's life.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A first-person account of Raskin's trip to meet with B. Traven's widow, where she wants him to collaborate on a biography of the mysterious author. While she provides much physical evidence of the author's life, she is not reliable. Rather than cooperate on creating a new fictionalization, the Raskin recounts what he was told by each person he met in Mexico as he sought the truth.

While it is well written, some of Raskin's trip is trivial and not related so much to Traven as it is to a need to fill out the book.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this was one of the best books I've ever read. Somehow it was very personal to me. I couldn't put it down. I'm not touting it's literary merit or such. In fact, it may be junk. But I enjoyed it. More than I think I'd ever enjoyed a book previous.