Josef Čapek

Josef Čapek (IPA2|jozf apk) (March 23,1887 – April, 1945cite book |title=Slovník českých spisovatelů |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors=ed. Věra Menclová, Václav Vaněk |year=2005 |publisher=Libri |location=Prague |isbn=80-7277-179-5 |pages=p. 111-113 |url= cs icon] ) was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word robot, which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek).

Biography

Čapek was born in Hronov, Bohemia (Austria-Hungary, later Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic) in 1887. First a painter of the Cubist school, he later developed his own playful primitive style. He collaborated with his brother Karel on a number of plays and short stories; on his own, he wrote the utopian play "Land of Many Names" and several novels, as well as critical essays in which he argued for the art of the unconscious, of children, and of 'savages'. He was named by his brother as the true inventor of the term "robot ". [ [http://capek.misto.cz/english/robot.html Karel Capek - Who did actually invent the word "robot" and what does it mean? ] at capek.misto.cz] As a cartoonist, he worked for "Lidové Noviny," a newspaper based in Prague.Due to his critical attitude towards Nazism and Adolf Hitler, he was arrested after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. He wrote "Poems from a Concentration Camp" in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he died in 1945.

His illustrated stories about 'Pejsek a Kočička' ('Doggie and Pussycat') are considered classics of Czech children's literature.

Selection of his literary works

*"Lelio", 1917
*"Stín kapradiny", 1930, novel
*"Kulhavý poutník", essays, 1936
*"Land of Many Names"
*"Básně z koncentračního tabora" (Poems from Concentration Camp), published posthumously 1946
*"Adam Stvořitel" (Adam the Creator) - with Karel Čapek
*"Dášeňka, čili život štěněte" (Dashenka, or the life of a Puppy) - with Karel Čapek, illustrated by Josef

References