Hungarian & other Esperantist authors at Nobel Books

"The Nobel Books (NB) is a literary portal which is intended to collect, archive and disseminate information and books which Nobel Laureates and world authors have published for literary contributions to humanity."

European Authors – Welcome to the Nobel Books.

This site doesn't play when it comes to listing Hungarian authors. Included are Julio Baghy, Kálmán Kalocsay, István Nemere, Tivadar Soros, Sándor Szathmári, and Robert Zend. All but Zend wrote in Esperanto. Zend was an Esperantist though wrote in Hungarian and English. Frigyes Karinthy was an Esperantist, wrote almost entirely in Hungarian. George Soros (son of Tivadar) is a native speaker of Esperanto.

Esperantists Marjorie Boulton and Baldur Ragnarsson are also in this list.

Witold Gombrowicz on Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

This might be slightly out of the range of this blog, except that I have blogged in English as well as in Esperanto about both of these writers. But there's another connection, which relates also to interlinguistics, i.e. the history of artificial languages and particularly the ars combinatoria, which I've written about in connection with Borges. Gombrowicz, living in exile in Argentina, encountered Borges and had a low opinion of him, documented in his Diary:

Witold Gombrowicz on Jorge Luis Borges

The following sentence, from an entry in volume 3, 1962, is the reason for me mentioning this here:

What could arouse greater enthusiasm in pure-blooded writers than this kind of bloodless, literary, verbal, unseeing writer who sees nothing except his own mental combinations? [Boldface mine—RD]

Witold Gombrowicz

There is no indication that Gombrowicz has in mind a connection between Borges's combinatorial proclivities mentioned here and the combinatorial logic behind the ars combinatoria or the characteristica universalis, but I made the connection, and that's good enough for me.

Marjorie Boulton died / mortis (2)

Obituary: Esperanto poet Marjorie Boulton by Stuart Rust, Oxford Mail, 28 September 2017.

"A POET who was a candidate for the Nobel prize for literature has died aged 93."

Leendert Cornelis Deij: "Al la Juda Foririnto" / "To the Jew Who Walked Away"

This post commemorates the Holocaust Days of Remembrance in 2017. Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Let us remember also that all of Zamenhof's children were murdered by the Nazis, and Esperanto was targeted as a Jewish conspiracy.

For decades this original Esperanto Holocaust-related poem has been my favorite on the theme of the Shoah. (I discovered some excellent Hungarian Holocaust poetry--some of which also has Esperanto translations--last year, but that is another story.) An English translation received a commendation in a British literary competition. I have reported on the poem, the poet, and the translation on this blog several times previously. I finally obtained the English translation, which I have added to the Esperanto original:

"Al la Juda Foririnto" / "To the Jew Who Walked Away"
by Leendert Cornelis Deij with English translation by Elizabeth Stanley

Note also William Auld's English translation:

Al la juda foririnto / To the Jewish Departed / Al judío que marchó
English translation by William Auld, literal Spanish translation by Fátima Maritela Marinera

Note that I have previously misspelled Deij's middle name, which should read ‘Cornelis’. ‘Leendert Cornelis Deij’ also appears under the names ‘Leen Deij’ and ‘Lodewijk Cornelis Deij’. When I figure out how to correct the subject heading, I will alter it to ‘Leendert Cornelis Deij’.

See also these web pages/sites:

• Star in a Night Sky (book’s web site)
• Star in a Night Sky: An Anthology of Esperanto Literature (publisher’s web site)
• Leendert Deij - Vikipedio
• Leendert Deij (OLE)
• La muelejo de Leen Deij (Deij's stillborn blog / blogo mortnaskita)