Author:B. Traven

B. Traven is famous in many circles for many of his works, and in the U.S. particularly well known as the author of Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the movie version of which won 3 Academy Awards. This means that many investigators have put considerable effort into the mystery of who he really was. That mystery, however, remains unresolved. Although there are many theories, the two that seem to be dominant are:


 * 1) He was born Feb. 23, 1882 in Schwiebus, East Prussia, Germany (now Świebodzin, Poland), the illegitimate son of Hormina Wienecke and Adolf Rudolf Feige, and christened Herman Albert Otto Maximilian Wienecke. After his parents married he became Otto Feige. In 1896 he was apprenticed to a locksmith and in 1902-04 he served in the army. Because of his radical politics, he had to leave his home town, and between the years 1904 and 1907 he may have been a seaman. In 1907 he joined the Essen Municipal Theatre under the pseudonym Ret Marut, a young actor and director.
 * 2) Traven was born Traven Torsvan Croves in Chicago on May 3, 1890 of the Norwegian father Burton Torsvan and mother Dorothy Croves of Anglo-Saxon descent. His parents emigrated from the United States to Germany "some time after their son's birth", and he spent his youth in Germany, eventually becoming "Ret Marut".

From there: Ret Marut played in various theatres and in 1915 he went to Munich to start his career as a writer. There he published the journal Der Ziegelbrenner (1917-21, from 1919 illegally) and was involved in the Communist revolution of 1919. Facing a death sentence because of his connection with the failed revolution, he escaped in the early 1920s, adopted the name of Traven, and, as Traven Torsvan, became a Mexican citizen in 1951.

Both Locus1 and the F&SF website claim that B. Traven is the pseudonym of Otto Feige. Jonschaper corresponded with the FS&F website about this attribution, and they admit that it is based only upon the popular theory and they lack access to any additional evidence. This is probably true of Locus1 as well.

Thus the birth name for B. Traven remains a mystery. However, the ISFDB does not use the birth name as the "legal name" for an author: we use the name at the time of their death. The death certificate of the individual who was almost certainly B. Traven lists him as "Traven Torsvan Croves", and hence that is the name listed here.

Recommended References

 * Wikipedia biography.
 * LibCom.org's Traven, an Anti-Biography.
 * Petri Liukkonen's analysis of his identity.
 * Answers.com listing from the Oxford Companion to German Literature.
 * Tapio Helen's paper B. Traven's Identity Revisited.