B. Traven’s Followers (243)

B. Traven

Born

in Germany

February 23, 1882

Died

March 26, 1969

Genre

Fiction, Adventure

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B. Traven was the pen name of a German novelist, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. A rare certainty is that B. Traven lived much of his life in Mexico, where the majority of his fiction is also set—including his best-known work, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927), which was adapted as the Academy Award nominated film of the same name in 1948.
Virtually every detail of Traven's life has been disputed and hotly debated. There were many hypotheses on the true identity of B. Traven, some of them wildly fantastic. Most agree, that Traven was Ret Marut, a German stage actor and anarchist, who supposedly left Europe for Mexico around 1924. There are also reasons to believ B. Traven was the pen name of a German novelist, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. A rare certainty is that B. Traven lived much of his life in Mexico, where the majority of his fiction is also set—including his best-known work, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927), which was adapted as the Academy Award nominated film of the same name in 1948.
Virtually every detail of Traven's life has been disputed and hotly debated. There were many hypotheses on the true identity of B. Traven, some of them wildly fantastic. Most agree, that Traven was Ret Marut, a German stage actor and anarchist, who supposedly left Europe for Mexico around 1924. There are also reasons to believe that Marut/Traven's real name was Otto Feige and that he was born in Schwiebus in Brandenburg, modern day Świebodzin in Poland. B. Traven in Mexico is also connected with Berick Traven Torsvan and Hal Croves, both of whom appeared and acted in different periods of the writer's life. Both, however, denied being Traven and claimed that they were his literary agents only, representing him in contacts with his publishers.
B. Traven is the author of twelve novels, one book of reportage and several short stories, in which the sensational and adventure subjects combine with a critical attitude towards capitalism, betraying the socialist and even anarchist sympathies of the writer. B. Traven's best known works include the novels The Death Ship from 1926 and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre from 1927, in 1948 filmed by John Huston, and the so-called Jungle Novels, also known as the Caoba cyclus (from the Spanish word caoba, meaning mahogany), a group of six novels (including The Carreta, Government), published in the years 1930-1939, set among Mexican Indians just before and during the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. B. Traven's novels and short stories became very popular as early as the interwar period and retained this popularity after the war; they were also translated into many languages. Most of B. Traven's books were published in German first and their English editions appeared later; nevertheless the author always claimed that the English versions were the original ones and that the German versions were only their translations. This claim is not taken seriously. ...more

Combine Editions
B. Traven’s books

Average rating: 4.12 · 13,243 ratings · 1,442 reviews · 116 distinct works • Similar authors

	Macario 4.22 avg rating — 3,687 ratings — published 1950 — 30 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 4.10 avg rating — 2,965 ratings — published 1935 — 178 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Death Ship 4.13 avg rating — 1,768 ratings — published 1926 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Canasta de cuentos mexicanos 3.91 avg rating — 1,631 ratings — published 1956 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Rebellion of the Hanged 4.14 avg rating — 791 ratings — published 1936 — 61 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Night Visitor and Other Stories 4.15 avg rating — 467 ratings — published 1966 — 37 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Bridge in the Jungle really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 405 ratings — published 1929 — 44 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Carreta 4.13 avg rating — 261 ratings — published 1931 — 42 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Cotton-Pickers 4.03 avg rating — 264 ratings — published 1927 — 41 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Government 4.19 avg rating — 248 ratings — published 1931 — 34 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by B. Traven…

Series by B. Traven

Jungle Novels (6 books)
by

B. Traven

4.16 avg rating — 1,723 ratings

Caoba-Zyklus (6 books)
by

B. Traven

4.16 avg rating — 1,723 ratings

Quotes by B. Traven (?)

“Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn't know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world.”
― B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

tags: advice, work

34 likes

“No use to preach to the working-man courtesy & politeness when at the same time the working-man is not given working conditions under which he can stay polite and soft-mannered.”
― B. Traven

19 likes

“A trip to a Central American jungle to watch how Indians behave near a bridge won't make you see either the jungle or the bridge or the Indians if you believe that the civilization you were born into is the only one that counts. Go and look around with the idea that everything you learned in school and college is wrong.”
― B. Traven, The Bridge in the Jungle

tags: decolonization

16 likes

See all B. Traven's quotes »

Polls

New School Poll March 2025

The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier (1969) 288 pages.

52 votes, 28.6%

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis (1955) 162 pages.

37 votes, 20.3%

A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters (1977) 197 pages.

25 votes, 13.7%

The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton (1922) 272 pages.

25 votes, 13.7%

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (2003) 537 pages.

24 votes, 13.2%

Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb (1937) 299 pages.

10 votes, 5.5%

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven (1935) 337 pages.

9 votes, 4.9%

182 total votes

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B. Traven’s Followers (243)

B. Traven

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B. Traven’s books