Top honors in the annual Esperanto literary competition have been voted to a Jewish scholar, Dr. Julius Balbin, for his translation of Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s famous poetic outburst against Russian anti-Semitism, "Babi Yar," it was announced here today by the Esperanto Information Center of New York. It was noted additionally that the prize was voted by a literary Jury holding its session in Sofia, Bulgaria, behind the Iron Curtain.
The award was made during the Universal Esperanto Congress, held at Sofia, last month. Dr. Balbin, a native of Poland and a former concentration camp inmate, was formerly assistant professor of French and Russian at the United States Merchant Marine Academy. He is now pursuing post-doctoral studies in linguistics at Columbia University.
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