Your Comrade, Avreml Broide: A Worker's Life Story

Written in 1944 by Ben Gold, the president of the Furriers Union, this proletarian, coming-of-age novel traces the family origin, immigration, and radicalization of an everyman named Avreml Broide. Mirroring Gold's own life, Avreml's story begins entangled in a complex intergenerational social and criminal community in Bessarabia just after the turn of the twentieth century. After immigrating to New York City as a young adult, he dedicates himself entirely to his union and the fight against fascism, often to the detriment of his personal life and relationships. With bold original illustrations by leftist Jewish cartoonist William Gropper, Annie Sommer Kaufman's fresh translation revives Gold's emotionally rich narrative and reveals some of the most daring efforts in America's suppressed Communist history.