Yosef Tunkel

Yosef Tunkel (1881–August 9, 1949) was a Jewish–Belarusian–American writer of poetry and humorous prose in Yiddish commonly known by the pen name Der Tunkeler or 'The dark one' in Yiddish.

Biography

Born into the family of a poor teacher in Babruysk (in Belarus, then part of the Russian Empire), Tunkel was a sickly child whose drawing ability prompted charitable members of the community to send him to art school in Vilno. He finished his studies in 1899 and, too short sighted to be a painter, turned to writing. His poetry was first published in Der yud (Warsaw) in 1901 and from then on his poems, satires, drama and children's stories appeared in Yiddish publications throughout Europe and North America.

Between 1906 and 1910 he travelled to the United States where he started the humorous journal Der kibitser (continued for two decades under the title Der Groyser Kundes). Moving to Warsaw in 1911 he wrote for Der moment, editing its humour pages, Der krumer spiegel, or The Crooked Mirror. He spent World War I in Ukraine, mainly in Kiev and Odessa. In the early twenties, he adapted several works of German poet Wilhelm Busch.