In the small, but vibrant world of Esperanto letters, there are few figures more beloved than Mikaelo Bronshtejn (b. 1949). Born in Ukraine and based in the Russian city of Tikhvin, Bronshtejn is a prolific novelist, poet, literary translator, and famed singer-songwriter who has written numerous books and recorded over a dozen albums of original songs in Esperanto and Russian. Bronshtejn first learned Esperanto—a language created in 1887 to ease international communication—in the early 1960s as was also an early leader and activist in the postwar revival of Esperanto in the Soviet Union. Bronshtejn was awarded the prestigious Antoni Grabowski Literary Prize by the Universal Esperanto Association in 2003.
Uncle Leyb’s nose looked almost like a fleshy potato, red-blue against his pale, still face, which appeared […]
