Published issues

Petr Volf sent me a text about the New Stage at Prague's National Theatre. He didn't have accompanying photos, but suggested I approach Radomíra Sedláková, whose monograph about Karel Prager (the building's architect) had contained nice photos. Radomíra Sedláková in turn referred me to her publisher, Titanic.

Rather worn out by this chain of negotiations, I picked up the comic book Savages (Divoši) by Lucie Lomová and reread a few pages. It’s a story from the turn of the last century, or rather, from its beginning, when traveller Alberto Vojtěch Frič returned from one of his adventurous expeditions to the Amazon with native tribesman Čerwuiš. Then I put down the comic book and googled the contact details for the Titanic publishing house. There on the landing page looking at me was a photo of the tribesman I knew from my childhood. It was a picture from the book of Frič’s journey to South America. Stuck in communist Czechoslovakia, I had devoured any and all travel books and had owned and loved this book as a child. Frič was a hero to me…

The picture on the publisher’s site immediately took me back to the comic book I'd just set down, and for a moment I felt I was back in my childhood and at least partially in the Amazon.

When I returned from my reverie, I called Titanic to see about publishing their historic photo documentation of the New Stage. My call was answered by…Yvonne Fričová. Yes, the publishers are the descendants of Alberto Vojtěch Frič! Did I dream it?

If you find photographs and drawings accompanying Volf’s article in this issue of INTRO, then I guess it really did happen!

Martin Verner, Editor in Chief