The Night Visitor and Other Stories

By B. Traven

Book Overview

Here are ten of B. Traven's remarkable short stories. Three of them are long stories: The setting of "The Night Visitor" is a hacienda deep in the Mexican bush where a lonely American recreates in his imagination an eerie world of Indian folk legend. "The Cattle Drive" is a vivid description of a cowboy's trek with a thousand head of cattle across the Mexican plains; it has all the authenticity that Hollywood Westerns lack. "Macario," which was made into a prize-winning motion picture, is a wry Mexican fable about an Indian woodcutter who makes a compact with the devil to save his family from starvation. Among seven shorter stories, some are based on incidents from contemporary Mexican life, others on ancient Indian folk legends. All have spontaneity, humor, and warmth. "B. Traven is coming to be recognized as one of the narrative masters of the twentieth century."--New York Times Book Review.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566630398
• ISBN13: 9781566630399
• Release Date: September 1993
• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee Publisher
• Length: 252 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Stories of Mexico before Disney and Taco Bell

To say that B. Traven captures the essence of old Mexican life outside the big cities, coming from a reviewer who has yet to set foot in Mexico, might seem a bit rich ! But I've heard that his novels and stories are required reading in Mexican schools. That may give more than just a little insight into what Mexicans think of his work. The pleasingly-written stories are well-constructed around themes of interest to everybody---history, poverty, work, love, dreams, animals, and humor. Throughout, Traven's respect for the common people of Mexico shines like an unwavering beacon, though he never idolizes them. The title piece, about an American stuck away in remote jungles, who reads his way through a library of rare books on pre-Columbian Indian civilizations, and reaps an amazing result, cannot fail to grip readers. Stories like "Effective Medicine", "Assembly Line" and "The Cattle Drive" reflect Mexican life as seen through American (or foreign) eyes, while "Burro Trading" is one of the most humorous stories I've read in a long time. Mexico is no doubt in the grip of the 21st century already---traffic jams, pollution, the Internet, privatisation, globalisation, and sweeping political change. These stories might harken back to a simpler time of less justice but less uncertainty, when social status was more fixed and Mexican ways had not been sullied by MTV, MacDonalds, and Madonna. Mexico is no doubt better off nowadays. The view of Mexico provided by the history of the Conquest and by the broad strokes of Rivera, Orozco, and Sequeiros is not the only one. This group of stories, by a talented, somewhat-mysterious writer, ought to be much better known than they are because of their attention to smaller details on a more daily plane. I strongly recommend THE NIGHT VISITOR.