The Little Prince

Remarks: A groysn dank, Shloyme, for your work! The book can be read in Hebrew script from the right and in Latin script from the left side. It can be found directly at Mundartverlag in Hanau.

There was a beautiful article in an Israeli newspaper: "It all started with Shloyme Lerman. He was born in the Soviet Union and spent two of his childhood years in refugee camps in post-war Germany before emigrating to Argentina with his parents, who eventually made their way to Israel. Yiddish is Lermans mother tongue. He collects various editions of The Little Prince, what he lacked was a Yiddish version. He found that there are none. So he sat down and translated the book for himself, a true labor of love. Then he tried to interest Israeli publishers in his work: No takers. (...) There is a publisher in Germany which specializes in German dialects. And, yes, they were interested. The publisher was ready to go to print in May 2000, planning a bi-scriptural edition: The Yiddish in Latin transcription, read from left to right, and an appendix with the text in Hebrew script. That is when the publishing plans were passed on to Gallimard, who sold the translation rights for 120 languages worldwide. The director in charge of foreign rights, Anne-Solange Noble, insisted that the Yiddish version of The Little Prince should be published in Hebrew script, from right to left, with the drawings incorporated in order, with the Latin transcript, if at all, appearing as an appendix. Noble was ready to withdraw the permission for the Yiddish edition, if it did not get printed in Hebrew script. The publisher, ready to print, tried to plead with her. 'It's a Jewish language, write it the Jewish way,' she said. 'Well, actually, it's a German dialect,' he answered. Anne-Solange Noble does not speak Yiddish. She is not even Jewish. When she was told that only children from ultra-Orthodox families read Yiddish in Hebrew script, and that they would anyway not be allowed to peruse 'Der Kleyner Prints', she said: 'The children of today are the adults of tomorrow. It is a text of universal scope, not religious, but very humanist. Nourish them today if there is any chance of seeing the revival of this language, which very nearly disappeared completely as a result of man-made murder 55 years ago.' (...) 'Shraybt mir geshvind az er iz tsurik-gekumen' ('Write me quickly if he does come back') asks the pilot of his readers. And he is back, in Yiddish, printed in Hebrew script from right to left." - Michael Handelsalts

Remarks: Bilingual edition fully written in latin script (collectors edition, 300 exemplars). The book can be found at Verlag Tintenfass in Germany.