The Esperanto bookshelf: the classics and the poets

The translation classics

Esperanto's early writers proved the language could carry serious prose by making it carry other people's:

Kabe was Kazimierz Bein, a Polish eye doctor, vice-president of the Akademio and author of the Vortaro de Esperanto (1910), one of the first dictionaries written entirely in Esperanto. In 1911 he left the movement without giving a reason, and the language made a verb of his name:

• kabei - to leave the movement after being an active member.

Marta is Orzeszkowa's novel of a widow raising her daughter alone and struggling to earn a living. The Londona Biblio of 1926 put Zamenhof's Old Testament, translated from the Hebrew, beside a New Testament translated by a committee of English and Scottish clergy.

• Zamenhof tradukis la Malnovan Testamenton. - Zamenhof translated the Old Testament.

Spoken Esperanto has more on kabei.

The original novels

Translations prove a language can carry a book; original novels prove it can produce one.

Baghy was himself a prisoner of war in Siberia from 1915 to 1920. Vojaĝo al Kazohinio appeared in Hungarian in 1941 and in Esperanto in 1958, and which came first is disputed: the presentation in the first Esperanto edition says Szathmári began it in Hungarian in 1935 and finished it in Esperanto. Gulliver meets the Hins, rational and without art, money or love, and the Behins, who are anything but.

• Szathmári verkis la romanon hungare kaj esperante. - Szathmári wrote the novel in Hungarian and in Esperanto.

The poetry

Kálmán Kalocsay led the Budapest school around the magazine and publisher Literatura Mondo. His Streĉita kordo (1931) is one of the outstanding collections of original Esperanto poetry.

William Auld's La infana raso (1956) is a book-length poem on humanity as a species, partly inspired by Pound's Cantos. Auld also edited the anthology Esperanta antologio (1958, second edition 1984).

• Kalocsay verkis bonegan poemaron. - Kalocsay wrote an excellent book of poems.

The Nobel claim. On a proposal made at the 1998 meeting of the writers' association EVA, Auld was put forward as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature from 1999 until his death in 2006. Whether a valid nomination reached the Swedish Academy cannot be checked: its nomination records stay sealed for fifty years. A real campaign, then, and a nomination nobody can yet confirm.

Poetic Esperanto covers the elision and rhyme these poets use.

Magazines and where to get books

A magazine arrives, is finished and arrives again, which is how reading becomes a habit:

• Mi abonas la revuon Monato. - I subscribe to the magazine Monato.

Buying. The UEA book service at katalogo.uea.org is the main shop. Free. Project Gutenberg has an Esperanto collection, mostly older translations. Borrowing. Local Esperanto clubs often keep a library: ask.