Louis Alojzi Adamic (March 23, 1899 – September 4, 1951) was a Slovenian-American author and
translator.
Adamic was born at the Praproče castle in Blato near Grosuplje, in what is now
Slovenia. He came from a peasant family. His limited childhood education was obtained from
local schools and Ljubljana from where he was expelled at age 15 [citation needed] for taking part in student
demonstrations against the ruling Austrians.
In 1913, [citation needed] he emigrated to the United States, and
finally settled in the Croatian fishing community of San Pedro, California. He became
a naturalized citizen in 1918. At first he worked as a manual labourer and later at a Slovenian daily newspaper, Glas naroda (The voice of a
nation). As an American soldier he participated in combat on the Western front during the First World War. After the war
he worked as a journalist and professional writer.
All of Adamic's writings are based on his labour experiences in America and his former life in Slovenia. He achieved national
acclaim in America in 1934 with his book "The Native's Return," which was a best seller directed
against King Alexander's regime in Yugoslavia. This book gave many Americans
their first real knowledge of the Balkans. It contained many insights, but proved far from infallible: Adamic predicted that
America would prosper by eventually "going left", ie. turning socialist.
He received the Guggenheim Fellowship award in 1932. During the
Second World War he had supported the National
liberation struggle (NOB) and a new Yugoslavia. From
1949 he was a corresponding member of the SAZU.
From 1940 onewards he served as editor of the magazine Common Ground. Adamic was the author of Dynamite: The Story
of Class Violence in America (1931); Laughter in the Jungle: The Autobiography of an Immigrant in America (1932);
The Native's Return: An American Immigrant Visits Yugoslavia and Discovers His Old Country (1934); Grandsons: A Story
of American Lives (1935, novel); Cradle of Life: The Story of One Man's Beginnings (1936, novel); The House in
Antigua (1937, novel); My America (1938); Two-Way Passage (1941); My Native Land (1943); Dinner at
the White House (1946); and The Eagle and the Root (1950).
Plagued by failing health, he is believed to have shot himself at his residence in Milford, New Jersey. He died at a time of political tension and
intrigue in Yugoslavia, and there was press speculation in America that his death might have been an assassination by some Balkan
faction, but no definitive proof of this theory has ever surfaced.
According to John McAleer's Edgar Award-winning Rex Stout: A Biography (1977), it was the influence of Adamic that led
Rex Stout to make his fictional detective Nero Wolfe a
native of Montenegro, in what was then Yugoslavia. (Wolfe's origins were murky in the early novels.) Stout and Adamic were
friends and frequent political allies, and Stout expressed uncertainty to McAleer about the circumstances of Adamic's death. In
any case, the demise inspired Stout's novel The Black Mountain, in which Nero
Wolfe returns to his homeland to hunt down the killers of an old friend.
Adamic told The Literary Digest: "My name is pronounced in this country
(America) exactly as the word Adamic, pertaining to Adam": a-dam'ik. (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name,
Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.) His original surname was Adamič, pronounced in Slovenian ah-DAH-mich.
References
- Elizabeth Bentley FBI deposition, 30 November 1945, FBI file 65-14603.
- FBI Silvermaster file (PDF
format pgs. 38,39, 52,53) pgs. 437, 438, 451, 452 in original.
See also
External links
Two articles by Louis Adamic here; http://libcom.org/directory/library/authors/Louis+Adamic
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