Ondřej Neff

After graduating, Neff worked in the Svět v obrazech magazine, and in 1970 received a PhD at the Institute for Education and Journalism. Later he studied cultural history of the Far East at the Charles University and worked in the Albatros publishing house. Neff was also a freelance photographer, and during 1979-1981 he studied at the Institute of Creative Photography and worked at the Mladá fronta newspaper.

At the age of forty Neff began his career as a professional writer, while still continuing with journalism. He worked as an editor of the Kmen magazine, an editor-in-chief of Mladá fronta Dnes, and he published his own science-fiction magazine Ikarie.

In 1996, he created his own web journal Neviditelný pes, and later a specialized journal, Digineff, dedicated to photography. He also co-founded the Institute for Digital Photography, where he lectures. Ondřej Neff has collaborated with television and radio producers, and on rare occasions, with film. He supported the production of several science-fiction films and co-wrote screenplays for TV shows. He also wrote a dozen of radio plays and adapted Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea into a five-piece series.

Verne has provided a constant inspiration for Neff since childhood. In 1979, he published the book Podivuhodný svět Julesa Verna (The Fantastic World of Jules Verne), and in 2005, he compiled an encyclopedia of all inventions and imaginary locations Jules Verne created in his stories. Apart from science-fiction authors, Neff has also studied the life of Jack London and wrote several epilogues to his novels, but an entire book is yet to appear.

Before entering the world of science-fiction, Neff published an autobiographical book Klukoviny a tátoviny (1980), a cheerful novel radiating optimism and verve. His first true “science-fiction” novel A včely se vyrojily (1983) was originally commissioned by an insurance company as a fire safety guidebook.

Ondřej Neff is a co-author of famous anthologies Lidé ze souhvězdí Lva (1983) and Železo přichází z hvězd (1983). The first collection of his own stories Vejce naruby (1985) became the best Czech science fiction of the year and received the Ludvík Souček award. Since then, Neff has published six more collections of short stories, including the Kniha Frenesis illustrated by Martin Zhouf, where brief texts form a larger philosophical reflection. Ondřej Neff has so far written thirteen sci-fi novels, among them, the Milénium trilogy (1991–1995).