Mancisidor, José

Born Apr. 20, 1895, in Veracruz; died Sept. 2, 1956, in Monterrey. Mexican writer and public figure.

The son of a worker, Mancisidor fought in the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17. In the 1930’s, Mancisidor headed Noviembre, a group of progressive Mexican writers, and edited its magazine, Ruta (Itinerary; 1933-39). During World War II he served as chairman of the Society of Friends of the Soviet Union. In the 1950’s he was chairman of the Mexican-Russian Institute of Culture. In 1935, Mancisidor headed the League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists of Mexico.

Mancisidor’s novella Mutiny (Russian translation, 1933), the novel Red City (1932; Russian translation of an excerpt, 1934), and his antifascist novella About One Spanish Mother (1938; Russian abridged translation, Mother, 1941) are devoted to urgent sociopolitical problems. The novels The Rose of Winds (1941; Russian translation, 1953; Premio Nacional) and Border by the Sea (1953; Russian translation, 1958; Premio Nacional) deal with the events of the Mexican Revolution. In the novel Dawn Over the Abyss (1955; Russian translation, 1958), the writer described the struggle for the nationalization of the oil industry in Mexico.

Mancisidor has published articles on K. Marx, V. I. Lenin, M. Gorky, H. Barbusse, and E. Zola, as well as travel sketches about the USSR (120 Days, 1937).