Czech Literature

Question 1

Czech sci-fi author of The Makropulos Affair, in which the protagonists refuse a life-extension formula after a convoluted court case. He wrote War with the Newts about the discovery and global war with an intelligent lizard species in the Pacific. His most famous work is R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots) in which robots eventually slaughter every member of the human race except Alquist.

Answer 1

Karl Capek

Question 2

Czech politician and writer who wrote about Josef Gross translating and later opposing a constructed language called Ptydepe in The Memorandum, about Hummel’s attempts to make sense of his life amid various demands for his time in The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, and about Hugo Pludek’s attendance of the title event at the bureaucratic Liquidation Office in The Garden Party.

Answer 2

Vaclav Havel

Question 3

Czech writer who wrote about Gregor Samsa’s transformation into a beetle in The Metamorphosis, and the arrest and bureaucratic procedures undergone by Josef K. in the The Trial. Other lesser known works include The Castle, A Country Doctor, The Hunger Artist, and Amerika.

Answer 3

Franz Kafka

Question 4

Czech novelist who wrote about Tomas’s struggle to reconcile his womanizing desires with his love for Tereza during the Prague Spring in The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He wrote about how Ludvik Jahn’s joke “Optimism is the opium of the people” is taken the wrong way dramatically altering his relationship with the Communist Party in The Joke, and he wrote a collection of short stories exploring the effects of a culture forgetting it’s past in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

Answer 4

Milan Kundera