![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() So, what about those newts, then? The book starts with the corpulent, swearing, red-in-the-face Dutch captain Van Toch, who finds a species of intelligent salamanders on an island in Indonesia. Nevertheless, it inspired a number of adaptations, mainly stage plays, and influenced future writers who were lucky enough to find a copy. For years it was out of print and hard to get hold of. The book is not well known in Western Europe and the English-speaking world. The Nazis blacklisted it, naturally, and later on Czechia disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. War with the Newts, full of commentary on fascism, colonialism, capitalism and nationalism – all the isms –, slipped away from the public eye after those events, and it may have something to do with its contents. A few years after this book was published, the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia and Capek was branded a public enemy, but he had already passed away by then from pneumonia. Published in 1936, War with the Newts is one of the last novels by Czech author Karel Capek, and is a thinly-veiled satire on, well, on a whole lot of things, but mainly on fascism. Newts, you say? What could that possibly mean? ![]()
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