The mystery of B. Traven

The man was a famous novelist, author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (that became John Huston's award-winning film) - and yet B. Traven's identity remains a mystery ... to this day.

Man, oh man - getting into this mystery is one heck of a rabbit hole, but don’t get me wrong, a fascinating rabbit hole, it is! B. Traven was nom de plum by, let’s see, Hal Croves, or Traven Torsvan, or Hermann Albert Otto Maximilian Feige, or Ret Marut, or the illegitimate son of German Emperor Wilhem II, or Jack London (who, according to this theory, had only faked his death).

One notion that is even more farfetched suggested that B. Traven was actually Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared in Mexico (there, the timeline really stretches the theory into nothing). And finally, one rumor even had it that behind B. Traven was Adolfo Lopez Mateos, President of Mexico. There are more theories - but let that suffice!

Below I’ll be adding a investigative show from way back when 1978. It’s in several parts and, trust me, well worth watching. Frankly, for one the mystery unfolds and fizzles and reappears and deepens and challenges again and again and again - but I also enjoyed just hanging out for a while in 1978, watching the footage, the people, dress codes, streets, cars. So who’s B. Traven, really? Here are three variations of a one quote, supposedly from the man himself:

"The creative person should have no other biography than his works."

“The biography of a creative man is completely unimportant.”

“An author should have no other biography than his books.”

There is something decidedly odd and driven about everything that is known from the few people who knew him. He might have been one man, he might have written in collaboration with another. He may have been born in San Francisco, he may have been German (the most likely hypothesis). When he interacted with people, he did so in writing. When he signed his name, he always typed it (paranoia? or was he hunted and thus hiding?). When he appeared in person - he didn’t. He always sent someone else to speak in his stead … and that person may then very well have been he himself in disguise and with documentation by the author stating that he was authorized to make decisions.

I came across this mystery during the writing/researching for my last novel, Quintus Hopper of Nevada. In that novel, mining itself runs through the story like a gold vein. So I researched the early miners and soon I went from the 49ers to discovering that John Huston’s brilliant “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” was based on a novel. Before you could say “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” I had the novel and read it and found myself looking at that odd name: B. Traven

Turns out that B. Traven, that elusive writer who lived somewhere in Mexico, sent his manuscripts to Germany where they were published in German. He claimed, however, that they were written in English first … experts don’t give this a lot of credence. I’ll let you watch below documentary - do take the time!

For my part, after watching it, after reading about the writer on Wikipedia and devouring the epic saga of the man’s many possible identities, I was actually left wondering just about that one, curious man, that person who wrote novel after novel, deeply immersed in Mexican culture, writing about indigenous people and their struggles in labor camps (he wrote a series of six novels about the subject) … I have to admit, while the mystery of his actual identify is certainly intriguing, I’m much more interested in the rationale for his anonymity.

Who is that person? The person who writes, who publishes, whose name achieves fame - and who chooses to have nothing to do with all of that fame. I love people who do things without telling others about it - there’s far too much of that ‘Oh look at me’ across mainstream and social media at all times. In B. Traven’s case, none of that. Had he been persecuted? Hounded by someone? Maybe even running from the law? I wouldn’t know, no one does.

There were and are many reclusive writers ( here’s a good rumination on that ), but most will claim their own name and live in the knowledge that they - remote from it all as they may choose to live - are famous, are revered. But then again, what is fame and … what’s in a name? One thing’s for sure, the man behind the moniker B. Traven didn’t want any of that. He got the money from his books, he lived his life - and even when people thought they knew who he was, he denied it to the end.

Curious, right? Now then, off you go down the rabbit hole!