With the first publication in English of Trozas, B. Traven's legendary Jungle Novels, an epic of the birth of the Mexican Revolution, are complete. Trozas is the fourth of the six Jungle Novels that describe the conditions of peonage and debt slavery under which Mexican Indians suffered during the reign of Porfirio Diaz. The main character of the novel is a young Indian named Andres Ugaldo, a virtual slave worker in a monteria--mahogany plantation-which is purchased by the profit ?hungry Montellano brothers, widely despised for their brutal treatment of workers. The demands on Andres and his companions exceed even the usual insufferable conditions in the monteria. Trozas (the word means "logs") captures the origins of the rebellious spirit that slowly spread through the labor camps and haciendas, culminating in the bloody revolt that ended Diaz's rule. Traven masterfully evokes the backbreaking daily routine of the monteria, brings alive the players in this sordid drama, and tells the story in riveting narrative.
