Hejme mia patro diris, ke li konas tiun poeton pli bone ol la aŭtorinon de la romano.

Hejme means at home.

Esperanto often uses a plain adverb in -e for locations that English expresses with a preposition:

• hejme = at home
• lerneje = at school
• urbe = in the city

So Hejme mia patro diris... is a very natural way to say At home, my father said...

En la hejmo would be more literally in the home/household, which is possible but less idiomatic here.

Because possessives like mia, via, lia, ŝia, nia already make the noun definite.

So:

• mia patro = my father
• not usually la mia patro

In Esperanto, possessives normally replace the need for the definite article.

In Esperanto, a subordinate clause introduced by ke is typically separated by a comma.

So:

• mia patro diris, ke... = my father said that...

This comma is standard Esperanto punctuation.

Ke means that and introduces a subordinate clause.

Here:

• mia patro diris = my father said
• ke li konas... = that he knows...

So the structure is:

• main clause: Hejme mia patro diris
• subordinate clause: ke li konas tiun poeton pli bone ol la aŭtorinon de la romano

Esperanto distinguishes between two kinds of know:

• koni = to know a person, place, work, or be familiar with something
• scii = to know a fact, information, or how to do something

So:

• Mi konas tiun poeton. = I know that poet.
• Mi scias, ke li estas poeto. = I know that he is a poet.

Since the sentence is about being acquainted with or familiar with a person, konas is the correct verb.

They are in the accusative, marked by -n, because they function as direct objects.

• li konas tiun poeton = he knows that poet
• la aŭtorinon de la romano is also understood as the object after ol

So the full comparison is understood as:

• li konas tiun poeton pli bone ol li konas la aŭtorinon de la romano

Because la aŭtorinon is also the object of an implied konas, it keeps the accusative -n.

Tiun means that and is the accusative singular form of tiu.

It agrees with the noun it modifies:

• tiu poeto = that poet
• tiun poeton = that poet (as a direct object)

Both words show the accusative:

• tiun
• poeton

This agreement is normal in Esperanto.

Because bone is an adverb, and it modifies the verb konas.

• bona = good (adjective, describes a noun)
• bone = well (adverb, describes a verb or manner)

Here the meaning is roughly knows ... better / more well in the sense of is more familiar with.

So:

• pli bone = better

Even though English sometimes says know someone better, Esperanto naturally uses bone with koni.

In this isolated sentence, that is the most natural interpretation: he refers to my father.

However, grammatically, li could refer to another previously mentioned male person if the wider context made that clear. Esperanto pronouns work much like English in this respect: context decides.

So in a standalone sentence, learners will normally understand:

• mia patro diris, ke li... = my father said that he...

with li referring back to my father.

Yes.

• aŭtoro = author
• aŭtorino = female author

The suffix -in- marks female sex.

So la aŭtorinon de la romano means the female author of the novel.

A learner may also notice:

• poeto here is not feminine, so it means poet in the non-female-marked form
• if the poet were explicitly female, you could say poetino

It means of the novel.

So:

• la aŭtorinon de la romano = the author of the novel

The preposition de often shows possession, authorship, relation, or origin.

Here it connects the author to the novel she wrote.

In this sentence, the grammar strongly points to:

• he knows that poet better than he knows the author of the novel

That is because la aŭtorinon is in the accusative -n, so it is functioning as an object.

In other words, the omitted part is understood as:

• ol li konas la aŭtorinon de la romano

If the meaning were:

• better than the author of the novel knows that poet

then the author would be the subject of the comparison and would not be accusative in the same way. One clearer version would be:

• ...pli bone ol la aŭtorino de la romano konas lin

So the -n on aŭtorinon is an important clue that the comparison is between two objects of koni.

Yes. Esperanto word order is fairly flexible, although not completely free.

This sentence begins with Hejme to set the scene first:

• Hejme mia patro diris... = At home my father said...

You could also say:

• Mia patro diris hejme, ke...
• Mia patro hejme diris, ke...

But the original version is natural and gives a slightly more topic-setting feel: As for at home / At home, my father said...

Word endings, especially -n, help Esperanto keep meanings clear even when word order changes.