Sanora Babb

Sanora Babb

Sanora Babb
Born April 21, 1907(1907-04-21)
Red Rock, an Otoe Indian community in Oklahoma, USA[1]
Died December 31, 2005(2005-12-31) (aged 98)
Hollywood Hills, California, USA
Pen name Sylvester Davis
Occupation Novelist, editor, poet
Nationality United States
Notable work(s) An Owl on Every Post, Whose Names Are Unknown
Spouse(s) James Wong Howe

Sanora Babb (21 April 1907, Oklahoma - 31 December 2005, Hollywood Hills) was an American novelist, poet and literary editor. She was also the wife of famed cinematographer James Wong Howe.

Contents

Life

Sanora Babb was born in Otoe territory in what is now Oklahoma, though neither parent was Otoe.[1] When she was seven, their father, a professional gambler, moved the family to a one room dugout on a broomcorn farm settled by her grandfather near Lamar, Colorado,[2] experiences fictionalized in her novels An Owl on Every Post and The Lost Traveler. Though she did not attend school until she was 11, she managed to graduate from high school as valedictorian.[1] She started, but could not afford to continue, studying at the University of Kansas, [3] transferring after one year to the Junior College in Garden City, Kansas.[1] Her first work in journalism was with the Garden City Herald, [1] her articles being re-printed by the Associated Press. Moving to Los Angeles, to work for the Los Angeles Times, the 1929 crash left her impoverished and sometimes homeless in the 1930s, sleeping in Lafayette Park. She eventually found secretarial work with Warner Brothers and was writing scripts for radio station KFWB. She joined the John Reed Club and was a member of the US Communist Party for 11 years,[4] visiting the Soviet Union in 1936, but left due to the authoritarian structure and in-fighting.[1] In 1938 she returned to California to work for the Farm Security Administration.[5]

Babb kept detailed notes (borrowed at one point by John Steinbeck) on the tent camps of the Dust Bowl migrants to California.[5] In the late 1930s Babb began turning this material into a novel, Whose Names Are Unknown. Bennett Cerf planned to publish the novel with Random House, but the appearance of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath caused publication to be shelved in 1939.[6] Her novel didn't get published until 2004.

Babb had a long friendship with William Saroyan starting in 1932 that grew into an unrequited love affair on Saroyan's part,[7] as well as an affair with Ralph Ellison.[8]

She met her future husband, the Chinese-American cinematographer James Wong Howe, before World War II. They traveled to Paris in 1937 to marry,[9] but their marriage was not recognized by the United States until 1948, after the law banning racial intermarriage was abolished.[5] Due to the ban, Howe's studio contract "morals clause" prohibited him from publicly acknowledging their marriage. They would not cohabit due to his traditional Chinese views, so they had separate apartments in the same building.[10]

In the early 1940s Babb was West Coast secretary of the League of American Writers. She edited the literary magazine The Clipper and its successor The California Quarterly, helping to introduce the work of Ray Bradbury and B. Traven, as well as running a Chinese restaurant owned by Howe.

During the early years of the HUAC witch-hunts, Babb was blacklisted,[9] and moved to Mexico City to protect the "graylisted" Howe from further harassment.[3]

Works

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Babb, Sanora; photographs by Dorothy Babb, commentaries by Douglas Wixson (2007). On the dirty plate trail remembering the Dust Bowl refugee camps (1st ed. ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 28. ISBN 978-0292714458. http://books.google.com/books?id=kG6E5GrB5NoC&lpg=PA27&dq=%22Sanora%20Babb%22&pg=PA28#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
  2. ^ editor, Mildred Laughlin, regional (1980). The Rocky Mountains. Chicago: American Library Association. pp. 64. ISBN 978-0838902967. "...at the age of seven, Sonora Babb found herself beginning a new life..." 
  3. ^ a b Biography at the Harry Ransom Center
  4. ^ Horne, Gerald (2001). Class struggle in Hollywood, 1930-1950 : moguls, mobsters, stars, Reds, & trade unionists (1st ed. ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. 89. ISBN 978-0292731387. "a party member of 11 years" 
  5. ^ a b c Elaine Woo, Sanora Babb, 98; novelist's masterpiece rivaled Steinbeck's, Los Angeles Times, 21 January 2006
  6. ^ Novelist and Poet Sanora Babb, The Washington Post, 9 January 2006
  7. ^ Balakian, Nona (1998). The World of William Saroyan (2. print. ed.). Lewisburg, [Pa.]: Bucknell University Press. pp. 273–275. ISBN 978-0838753682. http://books.google.com/books?id=4KDmMW_lUoQC&lpg=PA275&dq=Sanora%20Babb&pg=PA275#v=onepage&q=Sanora%20Babb&f=false. "I have never stopped thinking of you as somebody rare and extraordinary and fine and wonderful and truly beautiful." 
  8. ^ Jackson, Lawrence (2007). Ralph Ellison : emergence of genius. Athens: University of Georgia Press. pp. 215–216. ISBN 978-0820329932. http://books.google.com/books?id=NCEV37_oA2AC&lpg=PA215&dq=Sanora%20Babb&pg=PA215#v=onepage&q=Sanora%20Babb&f=false. Retrieved 30 March 2011. 
  9. ^ a b editor, Gordon H. Chang, senior editor ; Mark Dean Johnson, principal editor ; Paul J. Karlstrom, consulting editor ; Sharon Spain, managing (2008). Asian American art : a history, 1850-1970. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. pp. 333. ISBN 978-0804757522. http://books.google.com/books?id=Q2Dzco1DhfsC&lpg=PA333&dq=%22Sanora%20Babb%22&pg=PA333#v=onepage&q=%22Sanora%20Babb%22&f=false. 
  10. ^ See, Lisa (2009). On Gold Mountain. RosettaBooks. pp. 214–215. ISBN 9780795304965. http://books.google.com/books?id=fb37jTpg3foC&lpg=PA214&dq=Sanora%20Babb&pg=PA214#v=onepage&q=Sanora%20Babb&f=false. Retrieved 29 March 2011. 

External links