Novel
War with the Newts
Válka s mloky
Karel Čapek · 1935
Opening lines
Kdybyste hledali ostrůvek Tana Masa na mapě, našli byste jej právě na rovníku kousek na západ od Sumatry; ale kdybyste se zeptali na palubě lodi Kandong Bandoeng kapitána J. van Tocha, co to je tahle Tana Masa, před kterou právě zakotvil, nadával by chvíli a pak by vám řekl, že to je ta nejšpinavější díra v celých Sundských ostrovech […]
If you looked for the islet of Tana Masa on the map, you would find it right on the equator a little to the west of Sumatra; but if you asked Captain J. van Toch on board the Kandong Bandoeng what this Tana Masa was, off which he had just anchored, he would swear for a while and then tell you it was the filthiest hole in all the Sunda Islands […]
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from cs.wikisource.org
Synopsis
Captain J. van Toch discovers, near a small island close to Sumatra, a species of large marine salamanders, intelligent and skilful, which he puts to work fishing for pearls. The industrialist G. H. Bondy turns this into a worldwide business: they are sold as labour, taught, and used on the great maritime building sites. They multiply, learn to speak and to read, and tensions rise between them and humans, while the doorman Povondra clips from the newspapers everything that concerns them.
Context
Written in four months during the summer of 1935, the author finishing the last chapter on 27 August, the novel first appeared as a serial in Lidové noviny, in 1935 and 1936, then in volume form from Fr. Borový in 1936. It mixes press cuttings, memoirs and pastiches of learned articles into the narrative. Translated into several languages from the following year, it was placed on the index by the Nazis in Germany in 1940. Claudia Ancelot translated it into French in 1960.
Who it is for
A novel in three books and twenty-seven chapters, made up of narratives, press cuttings and learned pastiches. Several translations into French and English.
Prizes and reception
Named in 2018 by listeners of Radio Vltava the best work of Czech prose of the past hundred years; a classic of science fiction.