grateful. Thanks also to Metropolitan’s excellent team, including
Grigory Tovbis, Molly Bloom, Emily Kobel, Alison Klooster, Pat
Eisemann, and Meryl Sussman Levavi.
I’d like to think that because Bridge of Words survived the ordeals
of my past decade, including two hurricanes, a burglary, divorce,
and in 2013 the deaths of two beloved people, it now embarks on its
public life tempered and durable. For their “silken ties of love and
thought,” for being my “supporting central cedar pole,” I thank my
family. Daniel, Jordan, and Susannah lovingly consoled me, boosted
my spirits, and bore with my travel schedule; Jordy even wears the
Esperanto T-shirts I gave him. For their home-team cheers and much
else, I thank Joshua, Lori, Noemi, Shayna, and Rafaella; Gideon,
Shara, and Sandy; Laura; Walter and Elyssa; Bert and Karen; Sherri;
Bob and Lily; and Dan M., Rachael, and Christa. Walter Greenblatt,
aside from providing exemplary co-parenting and enduring
friendship, helped me mull over what sort of book this might
someday be during a chilly walk around Mountain Lakes: “for this
relief, much thanks.” My late father, Joseph M. Schor, was an
inspiration and a source of quiet strength; I miss him greatly. For
caring for him with loving kindness, thanks to Marilyn Rillera, Eljay
Mundin, and Teresita Ilar. Dean Drummond left me his passion for
life, his transcendent music, and his loving family: Aleta, Rick,
Adrian, and Gabriel; Ilana, Sharon, Micah, and Ella; Barry, Iis,
Julian, and Gita; Booker, Ruby, and Marie.
My thanks to the many friends and colleagues who lent me the
succor and fortitude to see this book to completion: Patti Hart, Laura
Nash, Adrienne Sirken, Sally Goldfarb, Joe Straus, Michael Straus-
Goldfarb, Martha (Marni) Sandweiss, Maayan Dauber, Susanne
Hand, Melissa Lane, Andrew Lovett, Linda Bosniak, Andrew Bush,
Sandie Rabinowitz, Deborah Hertz, Joanne Wolfe, Irwin Keller, Galit
Gottlieb, David Gottlieb, Robbie Burnstine, Andrea and Steve
Maikowski, Cathy and Russ Molloy, Margie and Steve Barrett,
Janine and Chris Martin, Anne Barrett Doyle, Andrew Solomon,
Rosanna Warren, Joel Cohen, Herbert Marks, Michael Greenberg,
Leonard and Ellen Milberg, Harvey Kliman and Sandy Stein, Jeff
Knapp and Dori Hale, Jonathan Wilson, Deborah Nord, Philip Nord,
Maria DiBattista, Susan Stewart, Jill Dolan, Stacy Wolf, Nigel Smith,
Jeff Dolven, Sarah Rivett, Susan Wolfson, Sean Wilentz, Bruno
Carvalho, Colin Dayan, Ken Gross, Michael Gorra, Ilan Stavans,
Liora Halperin, and Dorothea Von Moltke. My dear and trusted
interlocutor Jonathan Rosen got it before I did, as he so often does.
For the joy of his company and the delight of his art, my love and
gratitude to Dan Schlesinger, whom I recognized in profile.
ESTHER SCHOR
Princeton, 2016
ALSO BY ESTHER SCHOR
Emma Lazarus
Hil s of Hol and: Poems
Strange Nursery: New & Selected Poems
Bearing the Dead: The British Culture of Mourning from the
Enlightenment to Victoria
Cambridge Companion to Mary Shel ey (editor)
The Other Mary Shel ey: Beyond “Frankenstein” (coeditor)
Women’s Voices: Visions and Perspectives (coeditor)
About the Author
ESTHER SCHOR is the author of Emma Lazarus, which received a 2006 National Jewish Book Award, and Bearing the Dead:
The British Culture of Mourning from the Enlightenment to
Victoria. A poet and essayist, she has published two
volumes of poems, Strange Nursery: New and Selected Poems
and The Hil s of Hol and, as well as a memoir, My Last J-
Date. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New
York Times Book Review, The Times Literary Supplement, the
New Republic, Tablet, the Jewish Review of Books, and The
Forward, among other publications. A professor of English
at Princeton University, Schor lives in Princeton, New
Jersey. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Author’s Note
Introduction
Part I. The Dream of a Universal Language
1. Zamenhof’s Babel
2. West of Babel
3. A World of Words
4. A “Vexed Question of Paternity”
5. Lingvo Internacia
Samideanoj I: NASK, or Total Immersion
1. Ĉu vi lernas ĝin?
2. Affixed
3. Greta’s World
4. “A Stay-at-Home, Midwestern Guy”
5. Filipo and Nini
6. Total Immersion
7. Brigadoon Out
Part II. Doktoro Esperanto and the Shadow People
1. Jewish Questions
2. Ten Million Promises
3. A Shadow People
4. Mysterious Phantoms
5. Homaranismo
6. Idiots
7. The Sword of Damocles
Samideanoj II: Iznik to Białystok, or unu granda rondo familia
IZNIK
1. Revenants
2. “The Blackened Gull”
3. The Turk’s Head
BIAŁYSTOK
4. Bridge of Words
5. Big-endians and Little-endians
6. Adrian
7. Flickering Shadows
8. A Nation Without Pyres
Part III. The Heretic, the Priestess, and the Invisible Empire
1. The Heretic
2. “Language of Ne’er-do-wells and Communists”
3. Amerika Esperantisto
4. Vaŝingtono
5. A Map in One Color
6. “A Bastard Language”
7. The Priestess
8. Vanishings
Samideanoj III: Hanoi to Havana, or Usonozo
HANOI
1. Usonozo
2. The American War
3. La Finavenkisto
4. The English Teacher
5. VIPs
6. Number One
7. You Got That Right
HAVANA
8. The True Believer
9. “Tiel la Mondo Iras”
10. Devil’s Advocates
11. The Director
Part IV. Esperanto in a Global Babel
1. Reinventing Hope
2. Aggressor
3. Lapenna Agonistes
4. Many Voices, One World
5. Sekso Kaj Egaleco
6. Samseksemuloj
7. Rauma’s Children
8. Global Babel
9. Esperanto in 2087
Samideanoj IV: Bona Espero, or Androids
1. “A Little Piece of Heaven”
2. Androids
3. Utopians
4. Paper Kids
5. Tia Carla
6. The Builder
7. Plantman
8. Sebastian’s Mantras
9. Mosaic of the Future
Coda: Justice in Babel
Glossary
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Also by Esther Schor
About the Author
Copyright
BRIDGE OF WORDS. Copyright © 2016 by Esther Schor. Al rights reserved. For information,
address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.henryholt.com
Cover design by Lucy Kim
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schor, Esther H., author.
Title: Bridge of words: Esperanto and the dream of a universal language / Esther Schor.
Description: New York: Metropolitan Books, [2016]
Identifiers: LCCN 2015018907 | ISBN 9780805090796 (hardback) | ISBN 9781429943413 (e-