Vopěnka, Martin
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1963- ) Czech publisher and author, active from about 1989, whose Pátý Rozmeř (2009; trans Hana Sklenkova as The Fifth Dimension 2015) is an example of Fantastika whose incorporation of sf elements achieves a bleakly deliberated abstractness that removes the text very far from Genre SF, or indeed from the tale of political/cultural Paranoia it seems to channel. In a more or less contemporary land (similar to the Czech Republic), the protagonist finds himself agreeing to spend a year in a remote mountain Keep in the Andes, in complete isolation, having been offered money to support his family. The metafictional sparseness of the telling from this point focuses attention on the narrator's half-forgotten involvement in theoretical Physics, through which discipline he manufactures (or experiences) travel in the eponymous Dimension, and by virtue of which he observes (or confabulates) a series of surreal encounters. [JC]
Martin Vopěnka
born Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]: 8 September 1963
works (highly selected)
- Pátý Rozmeř (Zlin, Czech Republic: Kniha Zlin, 2009) [binding unknown/]
- The Fifth Dimension (London: Barbican Press, 2015) [trans by Hana Sklenkova of the above: pb/Jason Anscomb]
links
previous versions of this entry