The Many Lives of Meridel Le Sueur (1900–1996)

Abstract

A copy of Walt Whitman's writings at her bedside, the life-long socialist fiction writer, poet, and journalist, Meridel Le Sueur, died on November 14, 1996, at the age of ninety-six. Her literary persona, however, will live on into the next century as the site for contested interpretations, retrospectively inscribed, of the relation of female Marxist cultural workers to the organized Left in the mid-twentieth century. The Communist Party's People's Weekly World published an obituary noting that Le Sueur remained a Party member to the end, testimony to an unbroken allegiance of more than seven decades. (The claim was based on a February 1995 interview where, in reply to "the question," the bed-ridden Le Sueur quipped: "Prone, but still in!") In contrast, The New York Times obituary made no mention of any Communist or Marxist inclinations, describing Le Sueur as one "who reported on the plight of the poor during the Depression and celebrated the free spirits of early Americans in her fiction for children ..."This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.