Raymond Schwartz

Raymond Schwartz (April 8, 1894 – May 14, 1973), was a French banker and Esperanto author who wrote many poems and novels in Esperanto, as well as skits which he directed for Parisian Esperanto cabarets.

Born in Metz, a city in Alsace-Lorraine (German: Elsass-Lothringen) that from 1871 to 1918 was part of Germany, his family was French-speaking. He received a good education in Metz and spoke not only French and German often but also Latin and Greek.

Very early he became an Esperantist and dreamt of a better future through the diffusion of Esperanto. World War I, when he was conscripted into the German army and had to fight on the Eastern Front, was a disaster for him as a pacifist and for the Esperanto movement in general. After the war he did not remain at Metz, now again a French city, but moved to Paris, where he worked in a large banking firm until his retirement.

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.

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