TRACES of MAGMA an Annotated Bibliography of Left Literature
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page 1 TRACES OF MAGMA An annotated bibliography of left literature Rolf Knight Draegerman Books, 1983 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada page 2 Traces of Magma An annotated bibliography of left literature Knight, Rolf Copyright © 1983 Rolf Knight Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data ISBN 0-86491-034-7 1. Annotated bibliography 2. Left wing literature, 20th century comparative Draegerman Books Burnaby, British Columbia, V5B 3J3, Canada page 3 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Canada, United States of America, Australia / New Zealand 13 Canada 13 United States of America 24 Australia and New Zealand 51 Latin America and the Caribbean 57 Mexico 57 Central America 62 Colombia 68 Venezuela 70 Ecuador 71 Bolivia 74 Peru 76 Chile 79 Argentina 82 Uruguay 85 Paraguay 86 Brazil 87 Caribbean-Spanish speaking 91 Dominican Republic 91 Puerto Rico 92 Cuba 93 Caribbean- Anglophone and Francophone 98 Europe: Western 102 Great Britain 102 Ireland 114 France 118 Spain 123 Portugal 131 Italy 135 Germany 140 Austria 151 Netherlands and Flanders 153 Denmark 154 Iceland 157 Norway 159 Sweden 161 Finland 165 Europe: East, Central and Balkans 169 U.S.S.R .(former) 169 Poland 185 Czechoslovakia (former) 190 Hungary 195 Rumania 201 Bulgaria 204 Yugoslavia (former) 207 Albania 210 Greece 212 page 4 Near and Middle East, North Africa 217 Turkey 217 Iran 222 Israel 225 Palestine 227 Lebanon, Syria, Iraq 230 Egypt 233 North Africa and Sudan 236 Sub-Saharan Africa 241 Ethiopia and Somalia 241 Francophone Africa 244 Anglophone Africa 248 Union of South Africa 253 Mozambique and Angola 259 India and Southeast Asia 262 India 262 Pakistan 274 Sri Lanka, Burma, Thai1and 275 Viet Nam 277 Malaya 279 Indonesia 281 Phi1ippines 284 East Asia 288 China 288 Korea 296 Japan 299 Bibliographic Sources 311 Authors’ Index 330 page 5 INTRODUCTION This is basically an annotated bibliography of left wing novels about the lives of working people during the 20th century. It includes some collections of poetry, short stories and drama as well as a smattering of non-fictional material such as oral and life histories, but mainly it is a compendium of novels. It includes more than 3,000 titles originally in some 50 languages by circa 1,500 authors from some 90 countries. It is not a survey limited to socialist realist and narrowly proletarian novels of the 1930s, although many such titles are certainly included. Bibliographers do not normally attempt a compilation of works as diverse as those presented here. The main purpose of this compilation is to provide an introduction to leftwing fiction for general readers; it is intended for those who, for whatever reason, have become interested in what this literature has to say about events, forces and people throughout the world during the course of one long lifetime. It is intended for those who have only a vague notion of which authors and titles exist and where to begin. This bibliography adopts a broad understanding of what constitutes a progressive or leftwing stance in the literature annotated. A programmatic definition, such as whether a book advances some seemingly correct political view or whether it 'serves the interests of the working class' is impossibly malleable and untenable. I have cast a wide net. Any work which entails a sympathetic and an honest account of working people is in itself distinguishable from most other writing. Broad ranging or highly circumscribed in focus, moulded in a variety of historic, political and literary forms, this writing entails demands for social justice for the disinherited. Whether through reformist or more fundamental demands most of these works indict the workings of the capitalism and allied forms of exploitation, celebrating the struggles of individuals and groups against it. Whether through lyrical storytelling, bitter protest or subtle implication they propose a fundamental reordering of the ruling power over peoples lives. In all their variety they are, or once seemed to be, voices for the party of humanity. The themes found in the novels cited are almost as varied as the experiences of working people during the course of the century. They portray the multiple forms and many faceted strictures of caste and class, as well as the strategies which people evolve to circumvent or oppose such exactions. They deal with the contending claims of new understandings and the pull of older values, they depict the bonds of narrow loyalties but also widening allegiances which may broaden the horizons of once isolated people. They treat with the corrosive effects of social disenfranchisement but also with tenacious hope and the resurrection of struggles for social justice from the most unpromising of conditions. The themes deal with the costs of wars both 'just' and unjust, with political militancy and quiescent cultural resistance. They picture the workings of social institutions in particular societies through the understandings and manifold responses of ordinary people enmeshed in them. As novels the works usually pursue the broader processes through the experiences and emotions of a relatively limited number of characters. While not always captured in the annotations, the themes of hardships and struggle are typically alloyed with accounts of private joys, of collective achievements and personal pride wrung from the most diverse situations. This literature is not exclusively concerned with the themes of 'struggle, struggle, toil and trouble'. page 6 There are inherent limitations which a bibliography such as this encounters. One must accept that it is impossible to provide anything like an exhaustive survey of left wing novels on the scope dealt with. The somewhat subjective selection entailed is not purely arbitrary - I have attempted to sample the various themes, authors and traditions in the literature from different periods and countries. No single person would subscribe to all the contending views presented. However, this is not a survey of eminent authors and celebrated novels as such. Don’t be surprised to find the work of some renowned writers and literary luminaries absent here. The absence of any particular work or author does not imply any derogation. As literature some of the material excluded may be greater than some of the desperate chronicles which have found a place here. The fiction surveyed here includes the work of some of the greatest authors of the 20th century but it hardly needs saying that not all the items cited are works of great art -there are other reasons for their inclusion. One may have qualms about aspects of certain works and yet find them of value. In principle, each title should be considered on its own merits regardless of an author’s reputation or anonymity or later political trajectory. All in all, many of the works presented here embody greater literary merit than we are usually led to believe. Different writers with their own particular passions and styles touch responsive chords in different readers. Given differing views and degrees of knowledge who is to say which treatment of a topic is most moving or illuminating for any particular reader. Users will find certain gaps in coverage here which ideally might be remedied. Only two things are sure about users' responses: first, almost everyone will take umbrage that some of their favourite authors and works have been omitted while others they heartily dislike have been included and, second, most readers should discover a swath of fascinating material previously unknown to them. They should realize that it is not merely a question of what might have been added but rather which titles included one would delete in order to make space for additional entries. Everyone will have their own prime candidates for exclusion. The unabashedly documentary aspect of much of the material surveyed here is sometimes of as great an importance as the purely literary value of the books. Given this concern with social documentation, what is the reason for concentrating on novels and other fiction, forms often dismissed by 'serious intellectuals'? The contention here is that there is no simple distinction between the validity of 'objective' accounts and that of some kinds of fiction. Many of these novels are based upon a firsthand knowledge and a grasp of the events and forces greater than that presented in scholarly accounts. Often the fictional works are the only ones which deal with the everyday lives of ordinary people caught up in and acting to transform the particular conditions around them. Of equal importance, novels and other fictional work often capture people’s interest more effectively than do more scholarly studies. Fiction can have a moving as well as an illuminating quality which engages the reader. One must admit that some scholarly work is as excitingly written as the best novels and that some allegedly realistic fiction—various left wing novels among them—may be worse than useless as social chronicles. But if the realm of literature should not be mistaken for actual history, neither should most textbook histories or media documentaries. The emphasis on novels rather than on other kinds of fictional literature derives from the premise that the novel is seemingly the most general and accessible form of literature. The novel does appear to be a particularly suitable vehicle for social documentation; those stemming from other societies seem to survive translation better other forms of writing. More than any other format, novels are likely to be translated and potentially available in bookstores or libraries. A limitation is that the left literature of some countries and periods page 7 has only by exception survived a censorship of silence to enter sources accessible to the compiler. While I have made a special effort to locate English language editions of the works cited I have not hesitated to include seemingly untranslated items.