Esperanto
Author: David Poulson

The Famous Fifty. Part two

Author: David Poulson
Published on: January 21, 2000

Here are details of the rest of the 48 writers recommended by Marjorie Boulton in her book Faktoj kaj Fantazioj .

KALOCSAY, Kalman (1891-1976)
Hungarian doctor and amazingly prolific author. See Topic articles: 30th of April - 11th of June 1999.

KURZENS, Nikolai (1910-1958)
Latvian poet, editor and translator.

LANTI, Eugene 1879- 1947
French activist, translator and essayist with an excellent prose style. Founder of SAT - see Topic articles: 13 of November 1998 - 8th of January 1999.

LAPENNA, Ivo
Jugoslavian writer whose works I do not recommend to beginners.

LEJZEROVICZ, Izrael (pseud. Georgo Verda) (1901-1944?)
Polish Jew, killed during the Second World War. Translated many works from Hebrew and Yiddish and is best known for a collection of satirical pieces, El la Verda Biblio. This work was re-published in 1978.

MAURA, George E /WARINGHIEN, Gaston
One of Esperanto's great scholars and philologists. A fine poet and essayist, but most famous for his two works: La Plena Ilustrita Vortaro and La Plena Analiza Gramatiko. The latter work, known now as PAG, was a joint effort and Kalman Kaloscay was the other author. Raymond Schwartz (see below) mischievously described this long, expensive reference book as a "Kilogramatiko"!

MIYAMOTO, Masao (1913-)
Japanese translator and anthologist who also wrote many textbooks and readers for Japanese students.

MIHALSKI, Eugeno(1897-1937?)
Russian poet.

NEERGAARD, Paul (1907-)
Danish scientist, whose work La Vivo de la Plantoj, published in 1957, has become an Esperanto classic.

PIRON, Claude/VALANO, Johano
Swiss novelist, essayist, song-writer, teacher, psychologist. One of the most enjoyable and accessible of all modern Esperanto writers, Piron has also made a speciality of writing entertaining stories for beginners, using only a tiny vocabulary. His literary works appear under the pseudonym Johano Valano but he has also published frequently under his own name.

POTTS, Bertram
An Englishman who emigrated to New Zealand at an early age, Potts is a writer of great charm and good humour, with a simple style which at times can be translated almost word for word into English. Consequently, his work is very easy to read for those whose native language is English.

PRIVAT, Edmond(1889-1962)
Swiss author and activist. A poet, dramatist and essayist, his style is a model of clarity and elegance.

PUMPR, Tomas (1906-1972) Czech translator, mainly of poetry.

RIBILLARD, Jean (1904-1962)
French writer who contributed to several journals.

ROSBACH, Johann Hammond (1921-)
Norwegian novelist and short-story writer.

ROSSETTI, Cezaro (1902-1950)
ROSSETTI, Reto (1909-) These Swiss-Italian brothers lived most of their lives in Scotland. Cezaro died young but left a wonderful autobiographical novel to us as his legacy. Reto, friend and collaborator of William Auld, produced a very large number of poems, translations, essays stories and satirical pieces. Two of my favourite writers.

ROTKVIC, Ivo
Jugoslavian translator from the Croatian of Cezaro de Jelusic, published in 1934.

RUBLOV, S
Russian translator of poetry,

SCHWARTZ, Raymond (1894-1973)
French original! Humorist, satirist, founder of the "Verda Kato" cabaret, song-writer, novelist...a phenomenon.

SEKELJI, Tibor
Jugoslavian explorer, mountaineer and adventurer and a fine writer whose travel books are entertaining and instructive. Thanks to the courage and determination of Juan Regulo Perez, (see Topic articles: 22nd of January - 19th of February 1999), Sekelji exploded on to the Esperanto scene with his first book, Nepalo Malfermas la Pordon, published by Stafeto in 1959.

SZATHMARI, Sandor (1897-1974)
Hungarian novelist.

SZILYAGI, Ferenc (1895-1967)
Another of the great Hungarian Esperantists. Editor, poet. novelist, author of the excellent textbook "Ellernu."

TARKONY, Lajos (1902-1978)
Hungarian writer and translated, well-known for his literary criticism. De Pag^o al Pag^o. 2-a Eldono. Budapesto, Hungara Esperanto Asocio, 1976, is a good introduction to the works of some early Esperanto writers.

THORSEN, Poul (1915-)
Danish poet and humorist.

VARANKIN, Vladimir (1902-1937)
Russian author whose novel Metropoliteno was re-issued in 1977, forty years after his untimely death in Stalinist Russia.

WELLS, John Christopher
English philologist, essayist and lexicographer. Without decrying his scholarly published works in the slightest, I don't know why he has been included in this list of works for intermediate students.

ZAMENHOF, Ludwig Lazarus (1859-1917)
Needs no introduction.

Here are two more names to make up the number to fifty:

NEMERE, Istvan
Has produced a remarkable number of original novels and collections of short stories, both in his native Hungarian and in Esperanto. A writing machine! What I have read of Nemere has been racy, pacy, and not-at-all difficult to read.

SYGNARSKI, Mieczyslaro
Polish translator who produced, in 1978, an excellent translation of a novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz entitled Tra Dezerto kaj Praarbaro. An entertaining adventure story.

Finally, I want to strongly recommend two especially good but very different anthologies.

*** The first is Pas^oj al Plena Posedo: Progresiga Legolibro de Esperanto kun Lingvaj Ekzercoj, by William Auld. There are thirty long and well-chosen selections and a grammatical lesson to go with each one in this work.

*** The second is Baza Literatura Krestomatio edited by Vilmos Benczik. The second edition of this work, which I have, contains selections from 59 of the best original Esperanto authors writing up to that date. Get hold of this work if you possibly can.

Your recommendations

Did I miss out anybody important? If so, please let me and other readers of this Topic know via the Discussion Forum or, if you prefer, by sending me an email. In the meantime, I hope I have provided newcomers to Esperanto with enough suggestions for this year: happy reading!