Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2010
Abstract
This selection of Čapek's writing, translated here into English for the first time, offers the best of his journalism and some of his best letters. Selected, translated and with an introduction and annotations by Šárka Tobrmanová-Kühnová, and with a preface by John Carey, the book contains Čapek's essential ideas.
The pieces, divided into six conceptual chapters (Culture, Words, England, Noticing People and Things, Letters to Olga and Common Things), reveal Čapek's passion for the ordinary, his democratic view of culture, his concern about language abuse and politics (especially the rise of communism and fascism), his humanism and lyrical observations of the world.