Raymond Schwartz - Esperanto Writings

Esperanto Writings

Between the wars he published in different periodicals, particularly in Literatura Mondo, and wrote two volumes of poetry. His poetic works Verdkata testamento ("The will of the green cat") (1926) and Stranga butiko ("The strange boutique") (1931) are imaginative and humorous fantasies involving word games, characteristics also found in Prozo ridetanta (1928) ("Smiling prose").

His short novel Anni kaj Montmartre ("Annie and Montmartre", 1930) recounts the adventures of a young naîve German woman in Paris; it departs from the conventions of original Esperanto literature, in particular because of its style of writing.

From 1933 to 1935 he published the monthly satirical magazine La Pirato ("The Pirate"), which made him a sort of enfant terrible of the Esperanto movement, one for whom there were no secrets and for whom everything was an occasion for humour.

His masterwork, published after World War II, is Kiel akvo de l' rivero ("Like the water of the river"), considered as his most significant and most moving book. This is a partly autobiographical novel of a young Frenchman from the Franco-German frontier who comes to Berlin after graduation but must flee at the outbreak of war in 1914. During the occupation of France by Nazi Germany he joins the French Resistance. After the war he once more meets in Paris the woman he loved as a young man in Berlin. This classic novel about a family torn apart by two world wars is both serious and amusing.

He collaborated on Sennacieca Revuo, an annual cultural review published by Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda (World Non-National Association), writing a column titled "Laŭ mia ridpunkto." The name was a portmanteau word formed from vidpunkto, (Esperanto for "viewpoint") and rid (a word meaning "to laugh"). The column itself was written in a humorous style that included kalemburoj (puns) and antistrofoj (spoonerisms).