SHORT TAKES : Seeger Benefit for Le Sueur

MINNEAPOLIS — Pete Seeger will give a benefit concert Saturday to celebrate the 90th birthday of author Meridel Le Sueur, who documented people’s struggles during the Depression.

“Pete Seeger. I’ve known him for 60 years. . . . He was part of the struggle, like Woody Guthrie,” said Le Sueur, who turns 90 on Feb. 22. “I had people’s speech, they had people’s song. For the people you’ve grown with in militant struggle, there’s an affection you can’t express.”

Le Sueur broke into the mainstream in 1927 with the publication of her short story “Persephone” in Dial magazine.

Her career flowered in the 1930s, when her works were published in many journals, newspapers and magazines, and reached a peak in 1940 with the publication of “Salute to Spring,” an anthology praised by Sinclair Lewis and Carl Sandburg.