Kurd Lasswitz | |
|---|---|
.png) Lasswitz in 1900 | |
| Born | (1848-04-20)20 April 1848 |
| Died | 17 October 1910(1910-10-17) (aged 62) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | German |
| Notable works | Two Planets |
Kurd Lasswitz (German:Kurd Laßwitz; 20 April 1848 – 17 October 1910) was a German author, scientist, and philosopher. He has been called "the father of Germanscience fiction".[1] He sometimes used the pseudonymVelatus.
Lasswitz studied mathematics andphysics at theUniversity of Breslau and theUniversity of Berlin, and earned his doctorate in 1873. He spent most of his career as a teacher at theErnestine Gymnasium inGotha (1876–1908).[2]: 87–88
His first published science fiction story wasBis zum Nullpunkt des Seins ("To the Zero Point of Existence", 1871), depicting life in 2371, but he earned his reputation with his 1897 novelAuf zwei Planeten, which describes an encounter between humans and aMartian civilization that is older and more advanced. The book has the Martian race running out of water, eating synthetic foods, travelling by rolling roads, and utilising space stations. His spaceships useanti-gravity, but travel realistic orbital trajectories, and use occasional mid-course corrections in travelling between Mars and the Earth; the book depicted the technically correct transit between the orbits of two planets, something poorly understood by other early science fiction writers. It influencedWalter Hohmann andWernher von Braun.[citation needed] The book was not translated into English until 1971 (asTwo Planets), and the translation is incomplete.Auf zwei Planeten was his most successful novel.[2]: 88 A story from Lasswitz'sTraumkristalle served as the basis for "The Library of Babel", a short story byJorge Luis Borges.[3]
His last book wasSternentau: Die Pflanze vom Neptunsmond ("Star Dew: the Plant of Neptune's Moon", 1909). He is also known for his 1896 biography ofGustav Fechner.
For his writing (totalling around 420 works including non-fiction), Lasswitz has been called "the first utopistic-scientific writer in Germany" or even "a GermanJules Verne".[2]: 87
Acrater onMars was named in his honour, as was theasteroid46514 Lasswitz.
There also is theKurd-Laßwitz-Preis, an award for German-speaking as well as foreign authors of science fiction since 1981.
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