[Most] Traven scholars now agree: that Traven had been an itinerant actor and anarchist writer by the name of Ret Marut in pre-World War I Germany….

[Both] circumstantial and internal, or textual, evidence seems to confirm the identity of the two men: Ret Marut disappeared from Germany in the early 1920s (he probably left Europe in 1922 and landed in Mexico toward the end of that year); B. Traven's stories began to appear in German magazines early in 1925, their manuscripts having been sent to Germany from Mexico; Traven's novels, the manuscripts of which were likewise sent to Traven's German publishers from Mexico, started coming out in April 1926; Traven clearly expresses ideas in his novels found also in the writings of Ret Marut, and he often does so in Ret Marut's own words and style. It is difficult, in other words, to doubt that the two authors were one and...