Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Burning Valley

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Language
  
English

Publication date
  
October 1953

Pages
  
288

Originally published
  
October 1953

Page count
  
288

Followed by
  
The Magic Fern

Publisher
  
Masses & Mainstream

Media type
  
Print (hardback)

OCLC
  
37315232

Author
  
Phillip Bonosky

Genre
  
Proletarian literature

Country
  
United States of America

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Burning Valley is a 1953 coming-of-age novel by the American writer Phillip Bonosky set in the steel valley of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the 1920s. It was originally published in the Communist Party publication Masses and Mainstream. In 1998 it was reprinted as part of the series "The Radical Novel Reconsidered" by the University of Illinois Press.

The novel tells the story of Benedict Bulmanis, son of an immigrant Lithuanian steelworker, who feels called to the Roman Catholic priesthood, but is torn by local political events as steelworkers struggle to organize in the face of corporate expansion. Banks and millowners plan to clear land in the Monongahela River Valley for a new steel mill, but it means forcing workers from their homes. This expansion and technological upgrading will increase production but lay off thousands. The workers and homeless rebel, in an echo of the Steel strike of 1919, and young Benedict must choose sides.

References

Burning Valley Wikipedia