Languages
Koestler first learned Hungarian, but later at home, his family spoke mostly German. From his early years, he became fluent in both languages. It is likely that he picked up some Yiddish too, through contact with his grandfather. By his teens, he was fluent in Hungarian, German, French and English.
During his years in Palestine, Koestler became sufficiently fluent in Hebrew to write stories in that language, as well as create the world's first Hebrew crossword puzzle. During his years in the Soviet Union (1932–33), although he arrived with a vocabulary of only 1000 words of Russian, and no grammar, he picked up enough colloquial Russian to speak the language.
His first novel, The Gladiators (1939), was the only one he wrote in Hungarian. He wrote his other works up to 1940 in German. After 1940, he wrote only in English. (L'Espagne ensanglantée was translated into French from German.)
Read more about this topic: Arthur Koestler
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