The originality and significance of Laughing in the Jungle and of Mr. Adamic’s other published work, won for him a Guggenheim fellowship. The award enabled him to return to his native land, almost as much an immigrant to Yugoslavia after nineteen years as he had first been to this country. On his return to America he wrote The Native’s Return. That book and Laughing in the Jungle are complementary to each other. The two together form a unique record, the story of a Yugoslav who discovers America and of an American who rediscovers Yugoslavia.
Benjamin Stolberg said of Laughing in the Jungle: “This hook brings out his gifts even more clearly (than Dynamite). He is no mere autobiograplier. Again he is primarily a story teller. And, to my mind, he touches greatness as a story teller.”
The Bookman: “The power of the hook lies in the fact that it is an account of the experiences of an intelligent man of action, a man who has seen things in great variety, a man who has studied many kinds of people, has travelled over all of this country, has made observations in almost every phase of the American scene.”
The Survey: “Adamic is a philosopher and sociologist in the field of journalism. If his next book, which he is preparing while studying abroad, follows the method and theme of this hook he will have made a contribution to our literature of immigrant peoples as significant as The Rise of David Levinsky.”
This “next book,” mentioned in the Survey review, was The Native’s Return.
