The Cotton-pickersThe background of The Cotton-Pickers, set in Mexico in the 1920s, is the struggle of the emerging trade unions to end the exploitation of hungry laborers. Gales, a laconic American drifter, turns his hand to anything for a meal and a flea-bitten bunk--he works on a cotton plantation, in an oil field, in a bakery, as a cowboy for a North American ranch owner. Opposing exploitation, he leaves behind him a trail of rebellion. Underlying this lively and funny tale of his adventures is a powerful study of social injustice, and most of all a testament to the strength of human courage and dignity one of Traven's favorite themes. "B. Traven is coming to be recognized as one of the narrative masters of the twentieth century."--New York Times Book Review. "Great storytellers often arise like Judaic just men to exemplify and rehearse the truth for their generation. The elusive B. Traven was just such a man."--Book World. |
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Abraham Antonio Apfel asked Aurora Aztec baccarat bakehouse baker baking bandits belly dance bench better bulls bush café called cattle centavos Chink coffee cotton cotton-picking croupier customers damned dance door Doux's drink eggs Emiliano Zapata everything farmer fellow five pesos floor Gales girls Golden Section Gonzalo half hand happened head hens herd horse hundred pesos Indian Jeannette kilo knew Lamas laughed lived look maize matter Mestizo Montería morning mosquitoes murder never night oil field pastry pick pickets police policeman Pratt rags ranch sack saddle San Luis Potosí Secretary Señor Doux señoritas Shine shirt shouted sleep station stay strike talking Tampico tank tell tequila there's thing thought told took town train Traven tropical turned Viva el amor wages wait waiters weeks workers