Pavel Eisner (16 January 1889 – 8 July 1958), also known as Paul Eisner and under the pseudonym Vincy Schwarze, was Czech-German linguist and translator and the author of many studies about Czech language. He is considered one of the most important Czech translators of all time and was said to be proficient in 12 languages - English, French, Icelandic, Italian, Hungarian, German, Norwegian, Persian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, and Tibetan. He produced some of the earliest Czech language translations of

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

's work.

Biography

Eisner came from a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in Prague. He was bilingual from his childhood. He went to college at Prague's German University, where he studied Slavonic,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

, and

Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...

and graduated in 1918. He worked as a translator for the Czech Chamber of Commerce and Crafts and, at the same time, edited for the German newspaper, ''

Prager Presse The ''Prager Presse'' (Prague press) was a German newspaper published in the Czechoslovak Republic from March 1921 to 1939. History The newspaper Prager Presse was founded by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk with the aim of integrating the German-speaki ...

''. During this time, he also contributed to several cultural magazines. During the German occupation he was persecuted as a Jew, but survived because he was married to a non-Jewish German woman. He managed to publish a book under his pseudonym Vincy Schwarze.

Works

*Franz Kafka and Prague (1950

External links

Pavel Eisner in The Dictionary of Czech Literature after 1945
in Czech

in Czech {{DEFAULTSORT:Eisner, Pavel 1889 births 1958 deaths Writers from Prague People from the Kingdom of Bohemia Czech Jews Converts to Protestantism from Judaism Czech Protestants Czech translators Czech poets Czech male poets Linguists from the Czech Republic 20th-century Czech poets 20th-century translators 20th-century male writers 20th-century linguists