The first anthology of early Czech fantastic writing in translation.
Crossroads of Imagination is a rare English-language study of modern science fiction's precursors beyond the U.S. and Britain. Many translated for the first time, these thirty texts reflect a rich Euro-Atlantic tradition from the Romantic age to World War II. Authors include Jakub Arbes, Karel Čapek, Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic, Ladislav Klíma, Jiří Mordechai Langer, Jan Neruda, Emilie Procházková, Jan Weiss, and Julius Zeyer. The anthology highlights women's, Jewish, and queer voices.
Prefaces to each selection uncover how new ideas and technologies shaped the European fantastic-positivism, mistrust of elites, pacifism, spiritism, and xenophobia, alongside expansions in communications, transportation, electrification, and technical education. Comparative essays and annotations look beyond "major" literatures and emphasize those of East-Central Europe. Archival images enliven this collection. General and genre readers alike will discover new stories and authors, as well as a fantastic tradition shared across Europe and North America before the advent of modern science fiction.
Table of Contents:
Introduction by Carleton Bulkin
1 V. R. Kramerius “The Iron Shirt” (1831)
2 Jakub Malý “A Hundred Years On” (1841)
3 Josef Jirí Kolár Hellspawn (1853)
4 Jan Neruda Futuristic Feuilletons (1869–89)
5 Svatopluk Cech “Sketches from the Year 2070” (1870)
6 Julius Zeyer “The Opal Bowl” (1878)
7 Jakub Arbes “Rainbow Point Overhead” (1889)
8 Sofie Podlipská “A View into Hell” (1903)
9 Karel Hloucha “The Black Deep” (1907)
10 Jirí Karásek ze Lvovic Scarabæus (1909)
11 Karel Babánek “The Mysterious Disappearance of Petty Clerk Pištora” (1910)
12 Metod Suchdolský Russians on Mars (1910)
13 Jaroslav Hašek “Austrian Customs Offices” (1912)
14 Jan Havlasa “The Undersea” (1912)
15 Ladislav Velinský “The End of Dr. Snobins’ Immortality” (1912)
16 Karel Matej Capek-Chod The Turbine (1916)
17 Josef Šimánek “The Ruby of Ahmetis” (1916)
18 Emanuel z Lešehradu “Iris Inexorabilis” (1919)
19 Ružena Jesenská “The Soul” (1920)
20 Jirí Haussmann “-1” (1921)
21 Emilie Procházková The Martians (1922)
22 Tomáš Hrubý The Sahara Sun (1924)
23 František Langer “The Man Who Got Lost in His Utopia” (1927)
24 Jan Weiss “The Apostle” (1927)
25 Ladislav Klíma The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch (1928)
26 Jan Barda The Reeducated (1931)
27 Karel Capek “Letters from the Future”: U.S.A., Great Britain, Ireland (1930)
28 Jirí Mordechai Langer Nine Gates (1937)
29 Miles J. Breuer “A Contrivance of Life” (1942)
30 Olga Scheinpflugová The Acheirs: A Utopian Novella (1945)
Afterword by Michal Fránek and Ivan Adamovic
Bibliography
Index
About the Author :
Carleton Bulkin is a scholar of Slavic languages and literatures and a translator of Czech works, including Hidden History by Otokar Brezina, A False Dawn by Ilona Lacková, The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch by Ladislav Klíma, and Marketa Lazarová by Vladislav Vancura. Melvyn Clarke is a translator of Czech.
Review :
"A landmark of speculative fiction studies, all too often limited to works in English, thus obscuring the fact that other literatures, including the Czech one, offer original approaches to science fiction, fantasy and the fantastic. This anthology shows the way to future translators and scholars, as well as to a wider readership.”
"An extraordinary editorial achievement. None of the important authors in Czech fantastic literature is missing. The editor's notes, together with the detailed prefaces, make this a critical edition. Many of these texts have not been subjected to such careful examination even in the Czech language."
