Since its publication in 1957. Under the Ribs of Death has been recognized as a vivid recreation of Winnipeg's multiethnic North End in the 1920s, a subtle analysis of racial prejudice and its consequences, and the first significant revelation of Hungarian immigrant experience in English Canada. As required reading for courses in Canadian literature, psychology, sociology, social history, and ethnic studies, it was long in print in the New Canadian Library edition, and for years it was the only volume in the series that contained no information about its author. Only when Pulzi, I Love You, You Little Square was published in 1981 did Marlyn finally agree to interviews.

John Marlyn was born on 2 April 1912 in Debrecen, Hungary. His father, Adam, was a barber, a highly intelligent agnostic loner; his mother, Paula Kendal Marlyn, a Catholic, was the daughter of a wagon maker. Shortly after Marlyn's birth his father left...