The philosopher Vilém Flusser was born in Prague in 1920 but emigrated to Brazil, fleeing from Nazi persecution, at the outbreak of war in 1939, arriving in Rio de Janeiro at the end of 1940, with his wife and parents-in-law, after a short stay in London. The Flussers settled in São Paulo during the 1940s, where they lived for thirty two years. In the early years of the 1970s they moved back to Europe, settling first in Italy, and subsequently in Robion, France, where they lived until Vilém Flusser's untimely death in 1991 after a car crash, as he left Prague at the end of a symposium.
During the years he lived in Brazil, Flusser wrote for several Brazilian periodicals and taught at different academic institutions, among them, the University of São Paulo, the Brazilian Institute of Philosophy, and the Institute of Technology and Aeronautics. His first two books, "Lingua e Realidade" and "A História do Diabo," were published in Brazil during the 1960s.
In the late 1970s, and throughout the 1980s, Flusser travelled most of Europe lecturing and participating in conferences and symposia, during which time he published his most well-known titles. He came to prominence in the field of Media Philosophy after publishing his seminal book "Towards a Philosophy of Photography" in 1984, shortly followed by "Ins Universum der Technischen Bilder" in 1985, and "Die Schrift. Hat Schreiben Zukunft? in 1987.
As a polyglot, Flusser wrote in four different languages, German, Portuguese, English, and French. The Metaflux // Vilém Flusser collection aims to present to an international readership, high quality translations of Flusser's Brazilian writings, including courses, monographs, essays, and letters, as well as works originally written in English by the author.