War With the Newts

By Karel Čapek

In a Modern Translation by Edward Osers



"A sendup of multiple early-20th century isms ... [Čapek's] cosmopolitanism
vents itself impishly in War with the Newts, whose text bristles with puns,
pseudo-erudite footnotes, and international foolery."
—Daniel Drabelle, Washington Post Book World


"A bracing parody of totalitarianism and technological overkill,
one of the most amusing and provocative books in its genre."
—Bruce Allen, Philadelphia Inquirer


"Čapek had in mind the totalitarian deluge that [in 1938] began to engulf Europe.
But his satire aims, above all, at human blindness and greed.
The enemy is always within, he reminds us."
—Heda Kovaly, New York Times Book Review


"The new translation ... is wonderfully smooth;
indeed, it reads almost better than the Czech original."
Times Literary Supplement


"Superb SF, shrewd satire, and a technical tour de force."
—Thomas M. Disch, Entertainment Weekly (A)


One of the great, and most humorous, anti-utopian satires of the twentieth century, an inspiration to writers from Orwell to Vonnegut, at last in a modern translation. Man discovers a species of giant, intelligent newts and learns to exploit them so successfully that the newts gain skills and arms enough to challenge man's place at the top of the animal kingdom. Along the way, Karel Čapek satirizes science, runaway capitalism, fascism, journalism, militarism, even Hollywood. Catbird's best selling book, with a 4.17 Goodreads score with 9,000 ratings.

$17 paper, $10 e-book. 240 pp., ISBN 0-945774-10-9.


An e-book of War with the Newts can now be purchased directly from Catbird Press in PDF, EPub, or MOBI (Kindle) formats for $10.
Payment is via Pay Pal (our Pay Pal e-mail address is catbird@pipeline.com). Include a note in your payment, such as
"Please send a (format name) of War with the Newts to (your e-mail address)" or send a separate e-mail to info@catbirdpress.com,
which we can respond to with the e-book attached.




Click here to read a sample chapter from War with the Newts.



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