Albert Maltz

Maltz, Albert 

Born Oct. 8, 1908, in New York. American writer.

Maltz was born into an affluent Jewish family. He graduated from Columbia University in 1930. His first plays were antibourgeois and against war (Peace on Earth, 1934; Black Pit, 1935; Private Hicks, 1935). The protagonists of Maltz’ short stories are victims of the capitalist system. In his novel The Underground Stream (1940), about the workers’ struggle in Ford plants, Maltz paints a vivid picture of the Communist Princie. In the novel The Cross and the Arrow (1944; Russian translation, 1961), he writes about resistance to Nazism in Germany. During the McCarthy era, Maltz served a prison sentence (1950). His highly dramatic novel A Long Day in a Short Life (1957; Russian translation, 1958) depicts the rise of social protest and the solidarity between whites and blacks in prison. Maltz returned to the theme of antifascism in his novella Once in January (1966).

WORKS

The Journey of Simon McKeever. Boston, 1949.
In Russian translation:
Izbrannoe. Moscow, 1951.
Chelovek na doroge: Rasskazy. Moscow, 1962.

REFERENCES

Mendel’son, M. “Al’bert Mal’ts.” In Sovremennyi amerikanskii roman. Moscow, 1964.
Gilenson, B. “Al’bert Mal’ts.” In Istoriia amerikanskoi literatury, vol. 2. Moscow, 1971.

B. A. GILENSON