Louis Adamic was one of the most complicated and provocative figures of the American literary world during the first half of the twentieth century. A compulsive observer and writer, his interests and career represent major aspects of the social, political, and intellectual history of the United States. An immigrant, Adamic had ample opportunity to investigate the offerings of the American Dream, and he early concluded "that America was a Land Nobody Knew." He determined to know it, and in telling his readers what he discovered he intended "to keep America different" and all men free. His two novels, Grandsons: A Story of American Lives (1935) and Cradle of Life: The Story of One Man's Beginnings (1936), amply represent the diversity and complexity of Adamic's work.

Alojzij Adamic was born 23 March 1898, in Blato, Slovenia--a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the formation in 1918 of what is now Yugoslavia. Educated at the...