marxist novels

A student has asked our library staff for novels and poetry which have a Marxist content. He has taken some of the David Roberts series, and "The Time Machine" by H.G.Wells. We also found poetry by Mayakovsky. Does anyone have other recommendations?

You might suggest the drama of Bertolt Brecht.

How about "News from Nowhere" By William Morris

The Iron Heel comes to mind, though I have some reservations.

How the steel was tempered by Nicolai Ostrovsky is the quintessential novel of the new (Soviet) society built on Marxist principles. If one reads only one soc-realist propaganda classic, that should be it. Understanding "Marxist content" a bit flexibly as existing in something written by Marxists (also understood a bit flexibly), there are, for instance, the novels and poetry of Cesare Pavese, Lu Xun, Victor Serge, Louis Aragon, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair etc. (in general, Communist writers may be expected to adhere to Marxism; Marxists, however, need not be Communists... especially nowadays.)

It's also worth noting that Marxist reading of literature confers "Marxist content" on many works written long before Marx--this emphasises the interpretive nature of Marxism, as a tool for understanding history, over the restrictive programmatic applications.

LolaWalser's statement that "Marxists, however, need not be Communists... especially nowadays" is all too true, unfortunately. Just look at people like Richard Wolff, the "Marxist" economist who claims with a straightface that Google is "socialist" because, well, the workplace there is less hierarchical than in other workplaces. There, a "Marxist" economist who isn't even a communist, but doesn't even understand Marx's conception of capitalism! So it goes for the rest of the Democratic professors who dabble in "Marxism."

At any rate, you might check out the sci-fi novels of Mack Reynolds. He was a member of the Socialist Labor Party in the U.S.. News from Nowhere by Morris, already mentioned, is undoubtedly the greatest Marxist novel of the 19th century. It's not the best piece of fiction, and maybe it's dated, but it's hard to imagine a novelist with a keener understanding of Marx and what communism means than Morris.

Walter B. Rideout's *The Radical Novel in the USA* (1956) gives a survey of American novels between 1900 and 1954 that use revolutionary Marxist frameworks and ideas. Also Barbara Foley's *Radical Representations* gives a similar survey of "proletarian literature" of the 1930s, again indebted to Marxist ideology. Alan Block's *Anonymous Toil* reconsiders the radical novel ala Rideout and tracks it into the 1970s. Some, if not all, of these books have bibliographies of novels that will mostly be using Marxist critiques.

Poetry-wise, Carey Nelson and Alan M. Wald have books examining poets on the Left from the 1930s.

The classic British novel, The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell.

Bread and Wine and Fontamara by Ignazio Silone

John Dos Passos' trilogy, U.S.A..

Down the Long Table by Earle Birney (Canadian

Standing Fast, by Harvey Swados

Man's Fate by Andre Malraux and Haakon M. Chevalier

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhinitsin

The Case of Comrade Tulayev and Conquered City by Victor Serge

Jack Conroy's "The Disinherited" would be a likely candidate. Conroy went onto to edit the "Anvil". Modern work might include, Ken MacLeod and current British Marxist SciFi writier or China Mieville whose novel "The Iron Council" is a reinterpretation of the Bolshevik revolution set in a fantastic world.

Alexander Cordell's trilogy The Rape of the Fair Country, Hosts of Rebecca and Songs of the Earth are set within Welsh Chartism.

I am surprised no one as mentioned Howard Fast whose credited for the movie version of Spartacus. And second/third comments of Perdido Street Station and Iron Heel

How about Sartre's "Roads to Freedom" trilogy? Was Sartre a Marxist?

In addition to those already mentioned, it may be worth mentioning Pramoedya Ananta Toer's 'Buru Quartet' ('Awakenings', 'Child of all Nations', 'Footsteps', 'House of Glass').