Richard Weiner

Because of his enigmatic writings, he has often been likened to Franz Kafka, although mutual influences can be ruled out with near certainty. He has been called "the poet of anxiety", others spoke of him as "the Odd-man out" of Czech literature. Karel Čapek, his contemporary, dubbed him "the man of pain." He was a cousin of lawyer and member of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile Rudolf Rabl.

Weiner was born in Písek, South Bohemian Region, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic). His parents ran a distillery and confectionery and Richard, the oldest of five children, was destined to take over the family's business. He studied chemistry at the Technical University in Prague and after graduating in 1906 with a degree in Chemical engineering he went on to take further studies in Zurich and Aachen. In 1908 he served in the military and in 1909 he began working as a chemist in the Bohemian city of Pardubice, and in Freising and Allach (near Munich, Germany). In 1911, however, and after many sleepless nights, Weiner determined that he would rather try to make his living as an independent journalist and writer. The following year he moved to Paris and started writing as a correspondent for the Czech daily newspaper Samostatnost. Beginning in 1913 he primarily worked for Lidové noviny and published his first volume of poetry. While he was on vacation in Prague in the summer of 1914 World War I broke out. He was conscripted for military service and served at the Serbian front. In January 1915 he suffered a nervous breakdown and was discharged from the army. For the rest of the war he worked for various Prague newspapers and published three collections of short stories, among them Lítice (Furies, 1916), one of the first Czech books dealing with World War I. In 1919 Weiner returned to Paris once again as a correspondent for Lidové noviny. He was to stay in Paris for nearly the rest of his life, only returning to Prague in 1936 when he had fallen seriously ill with stomach cancer. He died in a Prague sanatorium on 3 January 1937. He was buried at the Jewish cemetery of his hometown. His tomb was wrecked in a pogrom shortly before the outbreak of World War II.

Weiner's journalistic work focused on French and particularly Parisian politics and culture, but covered everyday life and sensational crimes as well. He reviewed plays, literature, and exhibitions and even wrote a regular column on fashion under a female pseudonym. His style has been described as "impressionist" by contemporaries. For this reason his work may be difficult to understand now, because Weiner presupposed familiarity with the news of his day. "But is not his journalistic writing of that time a wonderful source of study of this time-period?" his friend and fellow correspondent Gustav Winter asked in his obituary of 1937. "This time period with its special fragrance Weiner perceived and interpreted however more by an intuition than hard study. He was proud of it - and rightly so." In her study of Weiner's work, Marie Langerová has characterized Weiner's quest as a journalist as that of a "destroyer of national myths".

• Netečný divák a jiné prósy. Fr. Borový, V Praze 1917. • Rozcestí. Básně. Fr. Borový, V Praze 1918. • Lítice. 2nd edition, Praha 1928. • Mnoho nocí. Básně. Vydal Ot. Štorch-Marien, Praha 1928. • Hra doopravdy. New edition, Mladá Fronta, Praha 1967. • Lazebník Hra doopravdy. Odeon, Praha 1974. • Sluncem svržený sok. Československý spisovatel, Praha 1989,. • Škleb. ARGO, Praha 1993,. • Spisy. (Works). 5 Vols., ed. by Zina Trochová. Torst, Praha 1996ff.