Václav Jaroslav Karel Pinkava (; 9 December 1926 – 13 August 1995), better known by his pen name Jan Křesadlo (), was a Czech

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the pre ...

who was also a prizewinning

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

. An anti-communist, Pinkava emigrated to Britain with his wife and four children following the

1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...

by the Soviet-led armies of the Warsaw pact. He worked as a clinical psychologist until his early retirement in 1982, when he turned to full-time writing. His first novel "Mrchopěvci" (GraveLarks) was published by Josef Škvorecký's emigre publishing house 68 Publishers, and earned the 1984 Egon Hostovský prize. He chose his pseudonym (which means firesteel) partly because it contains the uniquely Czech sound '' ř''; in addition, he was fond of creating more pseudonyms such as Jake Rolands (an anagram), J. K. Klement (after his grandfather, for translations into English), Juraj Hron (for his Slovak-Moravian writings), Ferdinand Lučovický z Lučovic a na Suchým dole (for his music), Kamil Troud (for his illustrations), Ἰωάννης Πυρεῖα (for his Astronautilia), and more. Pinkava was also active in choral music, composing (among others) a Glagolitic Mass. As well, he worked in

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of forma ...

, discovering the many-valued logic algebra which bears his name. A

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

and polyglot, Pinkava was fond of setting intense goals for himself, such as translating

Jaroslav Seifert Jaroslav Seifert (; 23 September 1901 – 10 January 1986) was a Czech writer, poet and journalist. Seifert was awarded the 1984 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his poetry which endowed with freshness, sensuality and rich inventiveness provides ...

's interwoven

sonnet cycle A sonnet cycle or sonnet sequence is a group of sonnets, arranged to address a particular person or theme, and designed to be read both as a collection of fully realized individual poems and as a single poetic work comprising all the individual sonn ...

about Prague, 'A Wreath of Sonnets'. He published a collection of his own poems in seven languages. Perhaps his most staggering achievement is '' ΑΣΤΡΟΝΑΥΤΙΛΙΑ Hvězdoplavba'', a 6575-line

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

epic poem, an odyssey in classical

Homeric Greek Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the '' Iliad'', '' Odyssey'', and Homeric Hymns. It is a literary dialect of Ancient Greek consisting mainly of Ionic, with some Aeolic forms, a few from Arcadocypriot, ...

, with its parallel

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...

translation into Czech. This was published shortly after his death, in a limited edition. () Only his first, prize-winning novel has been published in English translation, as GraveLarks in a bilingual edition in 1999 () and in a revised edition in 2015 () He is the father of film director

Jan Pinkava Jan Jaroslav Pinkava (born 21 June 1963, in Prague) is a Czech-British-American producer, director, writer, and animator. He directed the Pixar short film ''Geri's Game'' and served as co-director and co-wrote the story for ''Ratatouille'', b ...

who received an Oscar for Geri's Game in 1998 and also illustrated GraveLarks.

External links

* , in Czech and English * English links for easy reference: *
Illustrative Translations
* a couple of Critics' views, in English *

*

* About Astronautilia *
by Wallace McLeod, in English (Amazon entry)
*
illustrative sample transcribed by William Annis
* About his Scientific works *

*
Citations and Articles
*
Section on Pinkava logics in the Encyclopedia of Optimization
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kresadlo, Jan Czech novelists Czech male novelists Czech poets Czech male poets Czech psychologists Czechoslovak emigrants to England Writers from Prague 1926 births 1995 deaths 20th-century Czech novelists 20th-century Czech poets Czech emigrants to England 20th-century male writers 20th-century psychologists