Canetti, Elias

The prose writer and playwright Elias Canetti was born in the city of Rustchuk (or Ruse) in Bulgaria. His father, who was a wealthy grain dealer, came from a family of Sephardic Jews who had been expelled from Spain in the 15th century, and the son's first language became ladino, an ancient form of Spanish with elements of Hebrew. Later he also learnt Bulgarian, English, French, and German, which became the language in which he wrote. His childhood and adolescence was not only multilingual but also multicultural – after the time in the motley Bulgarian environment, the family moved to Manchester.