Karel Čapek

Born in 1890 in what is now the Czech Republic, Karel Čapek was a Czech writer, playwright, journalist, and essayist whose work ranged from science fiction to detective stories, travel writing, and political commentary. He studied philosophy and became known for clear, lively prose that could be witty, humane, and unsettling at the same time.

He is most famous internationally for the 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), which introduced the word “robot” to the world. Other major works include The Absolute at Large, Krakatit, War with the Newts, and the philosophical novel trilogy Hordubal, Meteor, and An Ordinary Life. Across these books and plays, he often explored technology, mass society, and the moral choices people make under pressure.

In the 1930s, as fascism spread across Europe, his writing became more openly concerned with democracy and human dignity. He died in 1938, just before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, but his work has endured because it still feels modern: imaginative, skeptical of easy answers, and deeply alert to the value of human freedom.