Karel Čapek

Karel Čapek  statement  ( information / explanation )  ( Malé Svatoňovice , January 9 1890 - Prague , December 25 1938 ) was a Czech writer .

He is seen as one of the most important Czech writers . He wrote several works with his brother Josef . His most famous works can as science fiction are classified, completely in line with British authors such as Aldous Huxley and George Orwell . He is known as the inventor of the word ' robot '. The word appears for the first time in his work RUR(Rossum's Universal Robots) ( 1920 ). In a letter to the editor in Lidové noviny (a Czech newspaper, which he edited some time) in 1933. Karel Čapek said that the word was coined by his brother Josef (see external links). He also wrote Krakatit (1924) about the discovery of an explosive of unprecedented destructive power (the atomic bomb?).

He also wrote numerous newspaper articles, plays, children's books, mystery, travel journals and even a book on gardening. Čapek took advantage of numerous writing styles and genres, often within a work. Much of his work is written with a quirky sense of humor. In 1932 a collection of his travels was published in the Netherlands under the nameObrázky z Holandská (published in Dutch under the title OverHolland). Famous is also Dasenka (1932, in the Netherlands as Tuuntje published) about his headstrong young dog, illustrated with own photographs.

Čapek brothers formed the hub of intellectual life in Czechoslovakia between the two world wars. They united leftist avant-garde artists with conservative intellectuals. Charles also enjoyed the warm sympathy of the charismatic president of the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938), Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937). Masaryk asked him to record his life story in Hovory s Masarykem (1928, Conversations with Masaryk).

In the 1930s campaigned Čapek in his work increasingly against the rising Nazism , fascism and communism . In this period he wrote a number of plays and novels with strong political overtones. Válka s mlokem (1936, War with the salamanders) is the best example. When the Munich Agreement of September 1938, it became clear that the Western European countries Czechoslovakia would not help against the Nazi threat, collapsed in his world. Shortly thereafter he died a broken man to a pneumonia .

Works [ edit ]
Unfortunately Čapeks work is Dutch badly available. In his time, the most important work published in Dutch. English and German translations as regards the important work is generally not a problem. A selection:
 * RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) ( 1920 ) (Pegasus 2010)
 * The Makropulos Case ( 1922, the basis of an opera by Leoš Janáček (1954-1928)
 * Krakatit (1924)
 * Conversations with Masaryk (1928)
 * Dasenka (1932)
 * Hordubal (1933)
 * War with the salamanders ( 1936 ) (Prism books # 1164-1966; Wereldbibliotheek 2011)
 * The year of the gardener (1929) (The Boekerij 2001 / Mets and Schilt 2003)
 * An ordinary life, (1934) (Wereldbibliotheek 2008)
 * Prints by Holland (1932) (footnote 2009)
 * The first team (1937) (translation of Hans Cretaceous and Miep Diekmann 1986)