Complex sentence: His mother, widowed young, was a teacher, who encouraged her children to read those "eternal books", essential as bread itself, literary works by authors such as Ivan Vazov, Dostoyevski, Jack London, Cervantes, Rabelais and Homer.
Split into simpler sentences: His mother, widowed young, was a teacher, who encouraged her children to read those "eternal books" essential as bread itself. Stamatov, V. Hostage and fugitive, Fatherland 1997,p.40 literary works by Ivan Vazov, Dostoyevski, Jack London, Cervantes, Rabelais, and Homer.