Chainy:The 'caveats', as you put it, are rather significant ones, though, so it might be better not to wade in with such iffy examples for people just starting off in Esperanto!

OK.

What are your "non-iffy" examples?

SPX:

erinja:Read a lot to develop an ear for style. . .

What authors would you suggest for this purpose?

I'm not extremely well-read in Esperanto literature, as it happens. But the more you read, period, the more you develop your ear for what does or doesn't sound good. Auld is a big one to read. A work like "La Farono", translated from the original Polish by Kabe (Kazimierz Bein), was key in the early development of Esperanto style, and though Kabe perhaps made some choices that wouldn't have been made today, it might give you a good idea of classical style.

I think Sten Johansson's books are a very good example of a very clear writing style without excessive use of complicated grammatical forms (but still getting across complex thoughts, without complex constructions). I liked Denaska kongresano as an example of a story that gives a bit of an insight into Esperanto culture.

You might want to buy a copy or two of the Beletra Almanako (Literature Almanac) - it's published by Mondial, I think, and available from Mondial, book services, and Amazon. It's compiled and edited by some eminent Esperantists, so everything in there should be high quality. It's a mix of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, essays, etc. I think there have been perhaps a dozen or so editions, so you could perhaps find a list or them and buy one or two that had contents that might interest you specially. The contents are written by writers from all over the world. Amazon's "look inside" preview will show you the tables of contents, so you can use that to help you choose one.

Some significant authors from the past are Kalman Kalocsay, Julio Baghy ("Estas mi esperantisto" is a popular poem of his, especially among beginners, because the grammar is easy). William Auld.

Marjorie Boulton is a significant poet who is still alive (though now elderly and in poor health, as I understand it).

"Marvirinstrato" is a book by a young (young in Esperanto terms) American writer, Tim Westover. It was published a couple of years ago, and was very well received. I think the online version is free and a paper copy is available for purchase. Kroatmilita Noktolibro by Spomenka Stimec is a popular and interesting personal account of the breakup of Yugoslavia, from the viewpoint of a Croatian. The title, "noktolibro", is a small play on words; a "taglibro", literally "day book" is the Esperanto word for diary, but since Spomenka mainly wrote her journal at night during air raids, she called it a "night book" instead. What I found to be one of the most interesting and discouraging aspects of her book were her descriptions of some aspects of the Esperanto movement in post-war Croatia, and moves to purge "Serbian content" from their Esperanto textbooks, so that the language would be "pure" Croatian. You might think that Esperanto speakers would be above excessive nationalism, but you'd be wrong. The book isn't suitable for beginners in the sense that it isn't easy reading, and I've met more than one beginner who bought it, excited to read it, then found it too hard. I'd encourage you to start out with free stuff online while you build up your skills, unless you want to be spending money on books that you can't read yet - which would be incredibly frustrating and discouraging, I think.

Wikipedia's article on Esperanto literature has a list of significant authors, some of whom are still alive and active; perhaps you should look at those names and then look at the literature archive that I link to below, and find some of their work.

This online literature archive is old-fashioned in format (the site has not changed much since it was started in the mid 90's, and the creator has unfortunately since died) but the contents are still a treasure trove of information. You might try the collected works of the Nica Literatura Revuo; anything from that publication should be well-edited by eminent writers of the time.

If you have a serious interest in literature, I recommend purchasing "Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto", by Geoffrey Sutton. It has excellent information on the history of Esperanto literature, significant authors, various schools of literature (Scottish school, Hungarian school, etc), and other information. And it's in English so you can read it today. It's not that cheap but Esperanto-related books are hardly every very cheap, and the quality is very high.

Awesome! That's a ton of info.

I at least know where to get started now. . .

One of the nice things about Lewis Carroll is that the story is familiar, so the reader can enjoy the wordplay with a familiar text.

SPX:

erinja:In the case of "ci", it has existed from the very beginning, but also from the beginning, Zamenhof recommended not to use it.

I have to wonder, then, why he even bothered to incorporate it into the language.

Hm. I thought it was for use in the Bible, where "ci" would be a perfectly good analogue for the English "thou," but it isn't where I thought it would be. In fact I can't find any uses of "ci" in the couple of books I perused other than as ends to words like "komenci".

I remember reading an answer to a question similar to this once. Somewhere. Almost 40 years ago. And wouldn't you know it, I just can't remember where any more.

This all sounds like a job for a peer-rated review service where people can post their reviews of Esperanto texts, similar to the review services on sites like Amazon or Newegg. In fact there may be one and I'm just not aware of it.

Hm. I thought it was for use in the Bible, where "ci" would be a perfectly good analogue for the English "thou," but it isn't where I thought it would be.

Yes, according to my Tekstaro search it doesn't appear in either the Old or New Testaments. Most of the hits for 'ci' are from a single book in the Tekstaro corpus - Ĉu Li pub. 1908, though there is a scattering of hits in other titles.

A capitalised 'Vi' (sic) is used for addressing the 'Eternulo' in the Bible.

In any case, the use of 'ci' in the dialogue of a 'policier' seems entirely inappropriate and should have been picked up by the publishers prior to publication.

The problem, of course, is that if that some chap has devoted a year of his life in a labour of love, sweating over a translation (or original), it then requires some diplomatic finesse in suggesting that his efforts need to be edited before they are fit for publication.

Most Esperanto publishers, unlike those of the national languages, are likely to find themselves in this difficult situation of not wanting to trample on the sensibilities of their translators (or authors).

With regards to publications in earlier periods, when the language was still undergoing a more intense evolution, there was a certain appropriateness in a laissez-faire attitude and any literary experimentation might be subsequently taken up by the community and incorporated into the language through some sort of linguistic Darwinian filter.

The position of Esperanto publisher today is further complicated by the fact that in the 21st century this feeling of the right of the invidual Esperantist to make his own personal contribution to the language is not completely 'eksmoda'.

"ci" is not yet in the unua libro but it is in the fundamento, so it was added between 1887 and 1905.

I would like to translate Mortimer J. Adler's "How to read a Book" into Esperanto. It's not really an ordinary sort of book but it would be neat to learn how to give yourself a classical education by means of Esperanto. I am sure that the copyright is restrictive though.

"It's my dream every since I read the book, to translate Noah Gordon's "The Physician" into Esperanto. I'd really like to do that, someday"

That would be cool . I hear that it is hard to translate a book into Esperanto in such a way that it retains the qualities about it's native languages very well. I could very well be wrong though, it would seem to me that Esperanto's flexible grammar would allow for proper description, as well as footnotes for cultural peculiarities.

Edit: Is there a way for Esperantistos to get together on line and show each other the original texts of their target books and their translations, which would avoid legal trouble? So long of course as nothing is published necessarily?

Well, does anyone think that there are books that should NEVER be translated into Esperanto?