Egon Bondy
From Philosopedia
Egon Bondy (20 January 1930 - 8 April 2007)
Egon Bondy, born Zbyněk Fišer in Prague, Czechoslovakia, was a philosopher as well as a poet and writer. The main personality of the Prague underground, he was active in a surrealistic group and from 1957 to 1961 studied philosophy and psychology at Charles University of Prague.
He wrote texts for The Plastic People of The Universe, an avant-garde rock band that the Communist regime frequently arrested because of its nonconformism.
Bondy's interest in Karl Marx led him to be critical both of contemporary capitalism and totalitarian socialism. His philosophical work is about ontological and related ethical problems, and he tries to show the relevance of ontology without any substance or grounding.
After moving in the 1990s from Prague to Bratislava, he has continued writing and now has finished 30 books of poetry, 20 novels, and other works.
An atheist, he is both admired and disliked because of his extreme marxist orientation.
Some comments about Bondy:
- Radio Praha's announcement of his death
- The New York Times obituary that tells how his funny poems as song lyrics were about constipation, all the drugs he took as a hypochondriac, and the Velvet Revolution that led to Vaclav Havel' assuming leadership of the country. When a friend asked him to be godfather to his child, he reportedly said he would gladly be Marxfather.
- International Herald Tribune's announcement of his death
- My First 75 Years, a 2006 movie about the former night-watchman who worked in the National Gallery in Prague
- Benjamiactivistn B. Page's April 1993 interview with the Czech activist and atheist
- David L. Steinhardt's 1991 interview in Monthly Review of "the last Czechoslovakian Marxist"
