Svatopluk T

(pen name of Svatopluk Turek). Born Oct. 25, 1900, in Hodslavice; died Dec. 30, 1972, in Gottwaldov. Czech writer. Honored Artist of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1960). Member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia since 1924.

Svatopluk T. graduated from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in 1922. and published his first works in 1925. In 1933 he published his novel Botostroj (Russian translation, 1949), which initiated a cycle of works showing the exploitation of workers at capitalist enterprises (Angels of Success, 1937; The Gordon Trust Brings Suit, 1940, 2nd ed., published as The Master and the Writer, 1949). The novel Without a Chief (1953; Russian translation, 1955; State Prize of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, 1954) describes the struggle of communists for the socialist restructuring of an enterprise. Svatopluk T. wrote several books about life in the Bohemian village, including Dead Land (1936), Swedish Marble (1961), the novels Little Man (1940) and House on Bethlehem Street (1942), and the short-story collection On Evil and Good (1939). He also wrote a number of stage plays and screenplays.