Duka, Ivo
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
Joint pseudonym of émigré Czech authors Ivo Ducháček (1913-1988) – in the Czech Diplomatic Service in exile during World War Two; later an academic – and his wife Helena Koldová (1928-1997), a photographer and video artist. After a short post-war parliamentary career in Czechoslovakia, Ducháček moved to the US after the Communist takeover in 1948. Ducháček was in charge of the Czech broadcasting department of the Voice of America in the early 1950s; his "Sunday Notebook" – broadcast between 1950 and 1998; the 1990th number aired after his death – were issued under the name Martin Čermák. Their sf novel for children, written in English before their marriage, is Martin and His Friend from Outer Space (1955 chap), about a boy who gains radio contact with a girl Alien from Saturn; she pays a visit. [PN/JC]
see also: Czech and Slovak SF.
Ivo Maria Rudolf Ducháček
born Prostejov, Austria-Hungary [afterwards Czechoslovakia]: 27 February 1913
died Kent, Connecticut: March 1988
Helena Koldová
born 16 November 1928
died Kent, Connecticut: 4 September 1997
works
- Martin and His Friend from Outer Space (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955) [chap: hb/]
links
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