Waldemar Bonsels (21 February 1880 – 31 July 1952) was a German writer and creator ofMaya the Bee. He was born inAhrensburg.

Waldemar Bonsels
Waldemar Bonsels in 1923
Born	21 February 1880 Ahrensburg German Empire
Died	31 July 1952 (1952-08-01) (aged 72) Ambach,Münsing West Germany
Occupation	Writer
Years active	1912–1952

Bonsels's most famous work is the children's bookDie Biene Maja und ihre Abenteuer (The Adventures of Maya the Bee). This work served the basis for a Japanese animated television seriesMaya the Honey Bee in the mid-1970s, as well as a Croatian opera for children written byBruno Bjelinski. The opera was staged in 2008 in Villach, Austria at the Carinthian Summer Music Festival.^[1]Himmelsvolk (People in the Sky) is a sequel with a more philosophical focus, describing in mystical terms the unity of all creation and its relationship to God.

He wrote a number of novels and shorter stories dealing with love as Eros and the higher level of divine love in the spirit ofromanticism (Eros und die Evangelien,Menschenwege,Narren und Helden, etc.), and about the relationship betweenman and nature in a simple life unchanged by modern civilisation (Anjekind, etc.). Bonsels also wrote a historical novel about the time of Jesus (Der Grieche Dositos).

He travelled extensively in Europe and Asia, which resulted in the bookIndienfahrt (Voyage in India).

Bonsels was an outspokenantisemite and expressed his approval ofNazi politics againstJews in 1933, calling the Jew "a deadly enemy" who was "poisoning the culture" in an article (NSDAP und Judentum) which was widely published.^[2] He died in Ambach,Münsing.

• Die Biene Maja und ihre Abenteuer (1912) (Maya the Bee and her Adventures, translated asThe Adventures of Maya the Bee)
• Himmelsvolk: Ein Buch von Blumen, Tieren und Gott (1915) (People of the Sky)
• Indienfahrt (1916)
• Menschenwege: Aus den Notizen eines Vagabunden (1917)
• Das Unjekind: Eine Erzählung (101.-120. edition, 1922)
• Eros und die Evangelien: Aus den Notizen eines Vagabunden (67.-90. thousand, 1922)
• Wartalun: eine Schlossgeschichte (101.-114. edition, 1922)
• Weihnachtsspiel: eine Dichtung (1922)
• Jugendnovellen (1923)
• Narren und Helden: Aus den Notizen eines Vagabunden (24.-26. thousand, 1924)
• Mario und die Tiere (1928) (Mario and the Animals, translated asThe Adventures of Mario)
• Dositos: Ein mythischer Bericht aus der Zweitwende (1949)
• Der Reiter in der Wüste: Eine Amerikafahrt (1935)
• Mario Ein Leben im Walde (1939) (Mario A Life in the Woods)
• Efeu: Erzählungen und Begegnungen (1953)

Translations

• Bonsels, Waldemar (1929).The Adventures of Maya the Bee. Illustrated byVera Bock; translated by Adele Szold Seltzer and Arthur Guiterman. New York: A. & C. Boni.
• Bonsels, Waldemar (1930).The Adventures of Mario. Translated byWhittaker Chambers. New York: A. & C. Boni.^[3]

• Die Winde
• Angelika
• Scholander
• Die Stadt am Strom
• Asja

• NSDAP und Judentum (1933)

• Works by Waldemar Bonsels atProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Waldemar Bonsels at theInternet Archive
• Works by Waldemar Bonsels atLibriVox (public domain audiobooks) 
• Waldemar Bonsels atIMDb