Unsound Siblings

Bondy's cheerful utopia, or rather anti-utopia, was written during the darkest years of "normalisation" in communist Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. The book Invalid Siblings, once considered a cult novel of the Czech underground, is not just a celebration of people's "alternative way of life", who deliberately live outside the (communist) state power, and a mockery of the current consumerist ideals of the police state, but also a light parody of science fiction, organically integrating philosophical themes. Although this work can also be described as "adventure literature", evoking, for example, the scenery of a "mysterious island", its overall message achieves the power of a religious gospel message that, despite all obstacles, it is ultimately possible to live in this world. The book was first published by the exiled 68 Publishers in Toronto and distributed in samizdat copies in Czechoslovakia, later winning the Egon Hostovský Prize. English translation by M. Corner is based on the last Czech edition from r. 2024, afterword by David Vaughan.