Heinrich August Luyken (10 December 1864 in
Altenkirchen – 21 September 1947 in
Amersham
Amersham ( ) is a market town and civil parish within the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, in the Chiltern Hills, northwest of central London, from Aylesbury and from High Wycombe. Amersham is part of the London commuter belt.
...
) is an author of various adventure novels in
Esperanto
Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communi ...
.
Heinrich Luyken attended
gymnasium in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
. In 1885 he emigrated to
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and acquired citizenship. He married the Englishwoman Alice Maud Marian Newbon and they had four children.
He learnt Esperanto in the year 1904 and he soon began propagating it. Heinrich Luyken is considered one of the main writers of
Esperanto literature before the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. He published four adventure novels between 1912 and 1924, in which his evangelical faith is reflected. In every novel the protagonist is a
heretic
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
who is "saved" by their faith.
Bibliography
* ''Paŭlo Debenham''. British Esperanto Association, London/Genf 1912
* ''Mirinda amo''. British Esperanto Association, London 1913
* ''Stranga heredaĵo''. Ferdinand Hirt & Sohn, Esperanto-Fako, Leipzig 1922
* ''Pro Iŝtar''. Ferdinand Hirt & Sohn, Esperanto-Fako, Leipzig 1924
External links
Biography in Esperanto
{{DEFAULTSORT:Luyken, Heinrich August
1864 births
1947 deaths
Writers of Esperanto literature