The Oriental Illusion: Karel čapek’s Tales

This paper intends to study the ways in which Karel Čapek treats the representations of the Oriental in two of his tales, “Jasnovidec,” (1928/1929, “The Clairvoyant”) and “Velká kočičí pohádka” (1932, “A Long Cat Tale”). The author is a Czech writer, journalist and photographer of the first half of the 20th century (1890-1938) who, in Eva Strohsová words “in considerable and multiple ways contributed to the creation of the cultural space of the first Czechoslovak republic and whose work gained a wide acclaim not only at home but also on the international scale.” (586. Translation mine.)