Karel Čapek

Karel Čapek (1890–1938) was a major Czech dramatist and novelist whose play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots, 1920) introduced the word ‘robot’ (from his brother Josef’s suggestion) and the enduring theme of manufactured beings rising against their makers. War with the Newts is a brilliant satirical dystopia, and The Absolute at Large and Krakatit extend his prophetic anxieties about technology and totalitarianism. A humane, essential ancestor of modern SF.