This Is My Fight; From American Literature of Today

Berlin: Volk und Wisen, 1979. Presumed first printing thus. Wraps. 64 pages. Footnotes. Illustrations. Cover has wear and soiling. Small corner pieces gone on some pages--no text lost. Contents include: The Un-Americans by Alvah Bessie; The Glory Train (from "Iron City") by Lloyd L. Brown; Let America Be America Again; Live with Lightning by Mitchell Wilson; The Strangest Dream; The Old Man by Alexander Saxton; and Solidarity Forever. Alvah Cecil Bessie (June 4, 1904 – July 21, 1985) was an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter who was blacklisted by the movie studios for being one of the Hollywood Ten who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Bessie then joined the American Communist Party and worked as the film reviewer for the left-wing magazine The New Masses.[ Bessie wrote screenplays for Warner Bros., and other studios during the mid and late 1940s. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Story for the patriotic Warner's film Objective Burma (1945). His career came to a halt in 1947, when he was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He refused to deny or confirm involvement in the Communist Party, and in 1950, he became one of the Hollywood Ten being found guilty of Contempt of Congress, for which he was imprisoned for ten months, and blacklisted. After his release from prison, he worked at the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco, running the lights and sound board and frequently introducing performers. Bessie left the Communist Party in the 1950s. In 1957, Bessie wrote a novel fictionalizing his experiences with the HUAC, The Un-Americans. Lloyd Louis Brown (April 3, 1913 – April 1, 2003) was an American labor organizer, Communist Party activist, journalist, novelist, friend and editorial companion of Paul Robeson's, and a Robeson biographer. He served as managing editor of New Masses from 1946 to 1948 and associate editor of Masses & Mainstream from 1948 to 1952. In this literary environment Brown worked with celebrated leftist writers such as Dalton Trumbo, Meridel LeSueur, Herbert Aptheker, and, of greatest consequence to Brown, Paul Robeson. In 1951 Brown published a novel, Iron City, based on his experiences in Allegheny County Jail, the fictionalized tale of his and other inmates’ efforts to save Willie Jones, condemned to death for murder. Brown began working with Paul Robeson in 1950, helped him write his column for the Harlem newspaper, Freedom, and 1958 his autobiography, Here I Stand. Mitchell A. Wilson (July 17, 1913 in New York - February 25, 1973) was an American novelist and physicist. Before becoming a writer, Wilson was a research scientist (for a time as an assistant to Enrico Fermi). Science, invention, and the ethical problems of modern atomic science are the subjects for some of his works. He also wrote non-fiction on scientific matters for the general reader. At the height of the Cold War, he was considered a major novelist in the Soviet Union, while in his native United States his reputation was considerably less elevated. His novels include Live with Lightning, Meeting at a Far Meridian, and My Brother, My Enemy. Alexander Plaisted Saxton (July 16, 1919 – August 20, 2012) was an American historian, novelist, and university professor. He was the author of the pioneering Indispensable Enemy (1975), one of the founding texts in Asian American studies. While working on the novels, Saxton was a full-time organizer of maritime workers and longshoremen in San Francisco, and he also wrote prolifically for many left-wing publications. Saxton did eventually get his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago, mainly to appease his parents. During World War II he served with the Merchant Marines. After the war, due to his left-leaning activities and with the Cold War in full swing, he found it difficult to find publishers for his fiction. At the age of 43 he returned to school, earning a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley and soon became a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He said he was part of a generation "radicalized by the Great Depression. Condition: Good.

Keywords: Radicals, Alvah Bessie, Lloyd Brown, Mitchell Wilson, Alexander Saxton, Left-Wing, Blacklist, Cold War, Communism, Novelists

[Book #83110]

Price: $75.00