Nový věk - Nepovídka – Bondy Egon (2017)

The pair of originally separate works by Bondy, which were written in chronological order in 1982 and 1983, were published separately several times in samizdat and both later in the 1980s in print in Tigrid's exile magazine Svědectví. The prose piece New Age belongs to a series of Bondy's quasi-historical novels and stories, together with works such as Mníšek (1975), Gottschalk (1988), Hatton (1991), or Severin (1995): based on the factual background of the Jewish Sabbatean heresy from the 17th century, the author unfolds one of his parables about the (im)possibility of social change, about hope, and about faith. The non-story is a relatively extensive prose text that amusingly blends elements of science fiction, anti-utopia, and philosophical treatise; here, Bondy's philosophical postulate of creating 'artificial beings' of the future takes on a specific, albeit somewhat self-caricaturing form. Both prose pieces are published in book form for the second time, but for the first time in a textually revised version, which is the result of the editor's work with all previous, including samizdat editions and also with the manuscripts.