(Front row, from left: writer and translator Song Kyung-A, Czech writer Ondřej Neff, Ljuba Krbová, Ambassador of the Czech Republic Jaroslav Olša, jr., editor and critic Park Sang-Joon, writer and translator Lee Soo-Hyun,

Back row, from left: Bae Yun-Ho of SF and fantasy library, chief editor of Fantastique magazine Chung Sung Won, writer and translator Choi Se-Jin, writer Park Seong-Hwan, writer and translator Kim Chang-Kyu, Joy SF club president Jeon Hong-Sik, translator Ko HoKwan, president of publishing company Book of Miracle Kim Myung-Cheol and writers Kim Sang-Hyun and Kim Bo-Young)

Photo: Ondrej Neff' s wife actress Ljuba Krbová

            

Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Republic of Korea Jaroslav Olša, jr., who is also a former co-editor of Czech science fiction magazine „Ikarie“ and author of Czech-language „Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Literature“ (1995), has organized the very first Czech-Korean science fiction meeting in Castle Praha restaurant in Hongdae, Seoul on July 9, 2009. Well-known Czech genre writer, Ondřej Neff, editor and a father of the first Czech SF magazine „Ikarie“ gave a short lecture on a state of Czech science fiction and had a discussion on the genre literature with some twenty leading Korean science fiction writers, editors and translators. Screening of Czech science fiction film classic space opera Ikarie XB-1 (1963) was also a part of this literary event. Some twenty leading Korean science fiction writers, editors and translators, among them Jung Seong-won, chief editor of Korean genre magazine „Fantastique“ and historian and science fiction editor of Woongjin publishing house Park Sang-Joon, also took part in this event. Among the visitors were also ambassadors of Turkey, Tunisia and El Salvador and a few Korean mainstream writers, all of them members of an informal Seoul Literary Society created a few years ago to promote interaction between foreign diplomats in Seoul and Korean writers and publishers.

Meeting took part shortly before the inauguration of the 13th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (July 16-26, 2009), the biggest genre event in Asia, where a few Czech genre films are also to be shown.

 

Ondřej Neff photographed in Boris Karloff´s style in front of Castle Praha restaurant

Photo: Ondrej Neff' s wife actress Ljuba Krbová