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Featured author . . .

Karel Capek

Dr. Karel Capek (January 9, 1890 – December 25, 1938) was one of the most influential Czech writers of the 20th century. He introduced and made popular the frequently used international word robot, which first appeared in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1921.   Karel credited his brother, Josef Capek, as the true inventor of the word robot. Capek was born in Malé Svato ?ovice, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic). Karel Capek wrote with intelligence and humor on a wide variety of subjects. His works are known for their interesting and precise descriptions of reality, and Capek is renowned for his excellent work with the Czech language. He is perhaps best known as a science fiction author, who wrote long before science fiction became established as a separate genre. He can be considered one of the founders of classical, non-hardcore European science fiction, a type which focuses on possible future (or alternative) social and human evolution on Earth, rather than technically advanced stories of space travel. However, it is best to classify him with Aldous Huxley and George Orwell as a speculative fiction writer, distinguishing his work from genre-specific hard science fiction. Many of his works discuss ethical and other aspects of revolutionary inventions and processes that were already anticipated in the first half of 20th century.  These include mass production, atomic weapons, and post-human intelligent beings such as robots or intelligent salamanders. In addressing these themes, Capek was also expressing fear of impending social disasters, dictatorship, violence, and the unlimited power of corporations, as well as trying to find some hope for human beings. Capek's literary heirs include Ray Bradbury, Salman Rushdie, Brian Aldiss and Dan Simmons. His other books and plays include detective stories, novels, fairy tales and theatre plays, and even a book on gardening. His most important works attempt to resolve problems of epistemology, to answer the question: "What is knowledge?" Examples include "The Tales from Two Pockets",  and first book of all the trilogy of novels Hordubal, Meteor, and An Ordinary Life. Later, in the 1930s, Capek's work focused on the threat of brutal Nazi and fascist dictatorships. His most productive years coincided with the existence of the first republic of Czechoslovakia (1918–1938). He wrote Talks with Tomáš Masaryk — Masaryk was a Czech patriot, the first President of Czechoslovakia, and a regular guest at Capek's Friday garden parties for Czech patriots. Capek was also a member of Masaryk's Hrad political network. This extraordinary relationship between the author and the political leader may be unique, and was an inspiration for Václav Havel. He also became a member of International PEN. Soon after it became clear that the Western allies had refused to help defend Czechoslovakia against Hitler, Capek refused to leave his country — despite the fact that the Gestapo had named him Czechoslovakia's "public enemy number 2." Karel Capek died of double pneumonia on December 25, 1938, shortly after part of Bohemia was annexed by Nazi Germany following the so-called Munich Agreement. He was interred in the Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague. His brother Josef Capek, a painter and writer, died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. After the war, Capek's work was reluctantly accepted by the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia, because during his life he had refused to accept a communist utopia as a viable alternative to the threat of Nazi domination.

   

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What I am reading . . .

Enlightenment by Maureen Freely. Woodstock/New York. 2008. Overlook Press. 398 pages. Cover photo by Zeynep Kanra. Cover design by Plainclothes Ltd. 9781590200742.

 FROM THE PUBLISHER -    

 In October 2005, only a few months after her Turkish husband is detained and her five-year-old son distributed to a foster family by US border patrol, Jeannie Wakefield disappears. She leaves behind in Istanbul a 57-page letter to M, an anonymous investigative journalist who Jeannie begs to write about her plight. The letter tells the story of Jeannie’s first arrival in Turkey 34 years earlier, when she was a bright-eyed 16-year-old innocent shimmering with open-hearted idealism. The letter reveals a convoluted tale of complex political intrigue, of retired intelligence operatives and Turkish teenage radicals willing to die for their right to speak out against the humanitarian outrages of their government, of a grisly murder and a dismembered body in a trunk. It is a grim and heartbreaking history of first loves shattered and best friends betrayed, and M finds herself, against her will, tangled in Jeannie’s narrative. But in the ‘deep state’ of post-911 Turkey, nobody is who they say they are, and everyone is a suspect - exactly how much will M inadvertently sacrifice to save the woman who stole her only true love? ‘A dark Conradian drama set in a beautifully illuminated Istanbul, where the past is always with us’ - Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prizewinning author of Snow ‘Byzantine in structure, mischievous in intent, it is as concerned with the garbled and provisional nature of truth as with the minutiae of repression’ - Times Literary Supplement ‘A gripping novel’ - The Independent ‘Playing out against a meticulously realized backdrop of Turkey in the years following the Cold War that feels thoroughly authentic, this sinister, complex political thriller snakes to a remarkably subtle conclusion.’ - Independent on Sunday. 

Gaga by Olafur Gunnarsson.  Ontario. 1988. Penumbra Press. Translated From The Icelandic By David McDuff. 68 pages. Cover art by Judy Pennanen. 0921254008.      

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

By no means a work of science fiction, Gaga is a variation on the Don Quixote theme — about a man gone crazy on too much reading. Set in Reykjavik, Iceland, the story takes the reader on a psychotic journey to Mars. In Icelandic, `gaga' means `crazy.' OLAFUR GUNNARSSON was born in Iceland in 1948. Besides the present volume he has published three novels and two books of poetry. The Icelandic editions of his works are published by Forlagid, Reykjavik.  DAVID MCDUFF was born in 1945. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he took his Ph.D. in 1971 with a thesis on the poetry of the Russian modernist, Innokenty Annensky.
JUDY PENNANEN is a Canadian artist and book illustrator whose work has frequently accentuated Penumbra Press publications.