B. Traven

His life belonged to him, only. His books belonged to the public.

B. Traven: Portrait of a Famous Unknown is a graphic biography that tells the larger-than-life story of the German revolutionary, actor, and writer known as B. Traven (1882-1969). Despite his commercial success as a best-selling writer, Traven managed to keep his identity a secret during his lifetime. It is now generally accepted that Traven was in fact "Ret Marut" (another psudonym), a German stage actor and editor of an anarchist newspaper in Germany called Der Ziegelbrenner (The Brick Burner). As Marut he was a major participant in the short-lived Bavarian council (or soviet) republic of 1919-20. Barely escaping execution, he fled Germany and lived incognito for the remainder of his life. His entire literary work, a great commercial success in its day, combines lively and often humorous storytelling with a radically critical attitude towards capitalism and nationalism. His best-known work is The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, from 1927. This novel was adapted for film in 1948 by John Huston, winning three Oscars.

Golo's stunning artwork and enthralling account of Traven's life begins and ends with his ashes being dropped from a plane over the Lacandon jungle in Chiapas, Mexico, just a quarter-century before the explosive uprising of the Zapatistas seemed to echo his deepest wishes.