A01=B. Traven
adventure
anarchist
Author_B. Traven
capitalism
Category=FBC
Category=FXL
Category=FXP
Category=FYT
classic fiction
classic literature
classics
communication between cultures
communist
cultural engagement
death dying and bereavement
eq_bestseller
eq_classics
eq_fiction
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ernest hemingway
forthcoming
george orwell
german
german literature
germany
indigenous
jungle
literary fiction
mexican
mexico
missing child
on grief and grieving
resilience
social theory
south america
survival
the empathy problem
the treasure of the sierra madre
tragedy and hope
translated
translation
western
wild and free nature
Product details
- ISBN 9780241822227
- Weight: 200g
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 20 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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It seemed that even the jungle fell silent for a moment as if it wanted to help save a little child
In the depths of the Mexican jungle, American traveller Gerard Gales is hunting for alligators, when he comes across a small village along the banks of the Huayalexco. Invited into the local community, Gales joins a huge party, held just across the river. But tragedy strikes when a young boy suddenly disappears into the pitch-dark night. As the villagers grapple with their loss, they come together in the face of life’s harshest realities, and something unspoken is born. A work of vivid description and radical empathy, Traven’s 1929 novel is a moving portrait of consolation and belonging in a remote indigenous community.
Little is known for certain about the life of B. Traven; a prolific writer, he is 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, but 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, and left Germany in 1923 after having been sentenced to death for his part in the Bavarian Revolution. He arrived in Mexico in 1924, where he dedicated himself to writing full time. Traven married Rosa Elena Luján in 1957 and died in Mexico City in 1969.
