William Auld

William Auld (6 November 1924 – 11 September 2006) was a British poet, author, translator and magazine editor who wrote chiefly in Esperanto.

Auld was born at Erith in Kent, and then moved to Glasgow with his parents, attending Allan Glen's School. After wartime service as a spitfire pilot in the Royal Air Force, he studied English literature at Glasgow University, and then qualified as a teacher.^[1]

In 1952 he married his childhood sweetheart Margaret (Meta) Barr Stewart, also an Esperantist, and had two children. In 1960, he was appointed to a secondary school in Alloa and he remained there for the rest of his life. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, 2004, and 2006, making him the first person nominated for works in Esperanto.^[2]

His masterpiece, La infana raso (The Infant Race), is a long poem that, in Auld's words, explores "the role of the human race in time and in the cosmos," and is partly based on The Cantos by Ezra Pound.^[3]

Auld began to learn Esperanto in 1937 but only became active in the propagation of the language in 1947, and from then on wrote many works in Esperanto. He edited various magazines and reviews, including Esperanto en Skotlando (1949–1955), Esperanto (1955–1958, 1961–1962), Monda Kulturo (1962–1963), Norda Prismo (1968–1972), La Brita Esperantisto (1973–1999) and Fonto (1980–1987).^[4]

He was Vice President of the Universal Esperanto Association (1977–1980), President of the Academy of Esperanto (1979–1983), and President of the Esperanto PEN Centre (1999–2005). He donated his personal collection of nearly 5,000 books in and about Esperanto to the National Library of Scotland, where it is now housed,^[5] in 2001.

He died in Dolair/Dollar, Clackmannanshire, and is buried in Dollar churchyard. The grave lies on the approach path to the church from the main road.

• The Infant Race – an English translation of La infana raso by Girvan Christie McKay
• The Bairnlie Race – a Scots translation of La infana raso by Girvan Christie McKay
• An Cinneadh Leanabail – a Scots Gaelic translation of La infana raso by Girvan Christie McKay
• Septembra mateno
• Rimleteroj (between William Auld and Marjorie Boulton)
• Auld's poetry in English translation at Poems Found in Translation
• "William Auld – Master Poet of Esperanto" by Girvan Christie McKay. Includes 3 translations of Auld's work La infana raso into English, Scots & Gaelic
• Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto: 1887–2007. Geoffrey Sutton, 2008. Mondial. ISBN 1595690905, ISBN 9781595690906. Publisher's page for the book; accessed 4 December 2016.
• Kalivoda, Nick (2012). "William Auld"(PDF). La Ondo de Esperanto (8-9 (214-215)): 22.