Author(s): Josef Čapek

Poetry

JOSEF ČAPEK was born in 1887 in Hronov in North Eastern Bohemia.

He was primarily an artist, but, like his playwright brother Karel, also a polymath. The brothers cooperated closely on many literary works, with Joseph suggesting the word robot rather than Karel’s labor for the 1920 play Rossum’s Universal Robots, as well as on children’s books. Their prolific output ensured that they were both household names. For their humanistic approach and public opposition to Nazism, Josef was arrested and interned on the very first day of WWII on 1 September 1939, with nearly a thousand other prominent Czechoslovaks.

The title poem of this selection, written by Josef in December 1942 in Sachsenhausen concentration camp on the anniversary of Karel’s death in 1938, is a heart-rending homage to his younger brother. This first anthology of poems has been selected by the commissioning director of the Karel Čapek Memorial, Kristina Váňová, the translator and Josef Čapek’s granddaughter, Kateřina Dostálová, to reflect both his dark realism and painterly use of language.