Ivan Klíma

"Karel Capek - Life and Work is a look at the important pre-war Czech author of such works as R. U. R., War with the Newts, Three Novels, and Tales from Two Pockets, through the eyes of one of the most important post-war Czech writers, Ivan Klima. It is a personal essay from a writer's more than a critic's point of view. And although originally written in Czech, the book was commissioned by Catbird Press and was therefore written with foreign readers in mind; in other words, no prior knowledge of Capek's writings or his milieu is required."--BOOK JACKET.

"In these stories, the dreams and frustrations of students and factory workers living under the totalitarianism of the 1960s evolve into portraits of people in the 1990s, struggling with responsibility, fidelity, and absence, haunted by a terrible guilt when their desires become reality. In "Honeymoon," a recently married woman goes on a honeymoon trip with a man who is not her husband. In "Heaven, Hell, Paradise," a doctor who has escaped communist Czechoslovakia sacrifices that freedom to return and be with the woman he loves - realizing too late that they do not really know each other. "Uranus in the House of Death," a contemporary story, displays Klima's dry wit as a vain theater director, set to fly to Australia for a conference and a little womanizing, dissolves in doubt when his lover's astrologer predicts a plane crash. And in "A Baffling Choice," a young wife, haunted by her generation's petty foibles, begins an affair with an elderly bookbinder who lives in her apartment building and risks destroying her family."--BOOK JACKET.

"Twenty succinct and thought-provoking chapters deal with topics of essential interest to us all today, including the role of rationality and irrationality, apathy and aggressiveness, the abdication of art, the mass media, virtual reality and escapism, youth's own particular vision, and a dozen or so other equally vital issues."--BOOK JACKET.

"Kristyna, a dentist, lives in Prague with her unruly teenage daughter, Jana. Born on one of the most momentous days of the last century - the day Stalin died - Kristyna's life seems full of uncertainties. Stories of the death of her grandmother and aunt; memories of her difficult relationship with her late father, a member of the Communist Party's feared Peoples Militia; and strange, threatening letters from an anonymous correspondent all serve to compound her sense of unease.". "During the summer of 1998 she embarks on a relationship with Jan, a thirty-year old former student of her ex-husband's. Jan's father, a scout-leader, was persecuted by the Communists during the 1950s; his son is now employed by the government to investigate the crimes of the post-war regime. However, not all are happy with his department's discoveries and they come under growing pressure from the government to disband. Meanwhile, Jana's increasingly erratic behaviour betrays her growing addiction to drugs and her mother is forced to take drastic action in an attempt to change the course of her life."--BOOK JACKET.

What happens to a rebel artist when there is nothing to rebel against? The novel follows Pavel Fukova, a Czech cameraman who under Communism dreamed of making a film that would be a searing portrait of his times. Now he can, but somehow he is always too busy with lucrative jobs, a TV spot, a commercial, a porn film. By the author of Love and Garbage.

Czech writer Ivan Klima masterfully recounts, first, what it was like for him as a Jewish child confronting with his family the inhumanities of the Theresienstadt concentration camp situated at the edge of their hometown, Prague. Then, more fully, he painstakingly recalls what it was like for him and his countrymen after the Nazi thugs were driven out by the Soviet Army and replaced for four decades by the Communist thugs.