Ivan Klíma

في انتظار العتمة في انتظار النور

riwāya

[Ḥub wa-qumāmat

Ewald Osers

Unable to earn a living as an author because his manuscripts are banned by the state, a Czech writer joins a street-sweeping gang in Prague, a job that leads to encounters with his eccentric crew and painful memoirs of the past

Love and Garbage

روح پراگ

The award-winning author of Waiting for the Dark traces his life under the totalitarian regimes of Nazism and Communism, describing his four-year imprisonment in the Terezin concentration camp, the revolt of young writers against socialist realism and his awareness-raising travels through free regions of Europe.

A Memoir

My Crazy Century

A collection of essays charting five critical decades in the history of Czechoslovakia, including events such as: the Nazi occupation; the Stalinist regimes of the fifties; the celebrations of the Prague Spring; the 1968 Soviet invasion; Charter 77; and the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

The Spirit of Prague

Judge on Trial

Láska a smetí

Blackly comic novel about life in Czechoslovakia before, during and after the so-called velvet revolution of 1989.

Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light

Má veselá jitra

Trekantdrama fra Tjekkoslovakiet om en ambitiøs videnskabsmand, som er parat til at ofre såvel karrieren som sit falmede ægteskab, da han møder en meget yngre kvinde, en rodløs og uberegnelig skuespiller

A Summer Affair

George Theiner

Seven witty stories, one for each day of the week, give a vivid picture of Prague before the Velvet Revolution.

Stories from Prague

My Merry Mornings

One of the last artistic expressions of life under communism, this novel captures the atmosphere in Prague between 1983 and 1987, where a dance could be broken up by the secret police, a traffic offence could lead to surveillance and where contraband books were the currency of the underworld.

My Golden Trades

A New York Times Notable Book: A Czech filmmaker survives Communism with dreams of artistic freedom in this “darkly powerful novel” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Pavel Fukova was once a promising, award-winning documentary filmmaker. But when his homeland is overtaken by a Communist regime, he is forced to survive by working as a cameraman for the state-run television station. Now middle-aged, he dreams of one day making a film — a searing portrait of his times that the authorities would never allow. When the communist regime collapses, Pavel is unprepared for the new world of supposedly unlimited freedom—and unable to make the film he has always wanted to make. Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light is a powerful, important novel about the struggle between the ideal and the temptations of freedom. A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

Alan Ayckbourn

After the collapse of the repressive Czech regime, Pavel finds it disturbingly difficult to make the documentary film that had always been his dream. Reprint.

In his intimate autobiography, spanning six decades that included war, totalitarianism, censorship, and the fight for democracy, acclaimed Czech writer Ivan Klíma reflects back on his remarkable life and this critical period of twentieth-century history. Klíma’s story begins in the 1930s on the outskirts of Prague where he grew up unaware of his concealed Jewish heritage. It came as a surprise when his family was transported to the Terezín concentration camp—and an even greater surprise when most of them survived. They returned home to a city in economic turmoil and falling into the grip of Communism. Against this tumultuous backdrop, Klíma discovered his love of literature and matured as a writer. But as the regime further encroached on daily life, arresting his father and censoring his work, Klíma recognized the party for what it was: a deplorable, colossal lie. The true nature of oppression became clear to him and many of his peers, among them Josef Škvorecký, Milan Kundera, and Václav Havel. From the brief hope of freedom during the Prague Spring of 1968 to Charter 77 and the eventual collapse of the regime in 1989’s Velvet Revolution, Klíma’s revelatory account provides a profoundly rich personal and national history.

Life and Work

Karel Čapek

Essays exploring the nature of modern society discuss rationality and irrationality, the artificial world, modern idols, mass media, and movements for change.

Between Security and Insecurity

Alexandra Baumrucker

Erzählungen

Liebende für eine Nacht, Liebende für einen Tag

"The voice [in these stories] is clear and intelligent and brave. Mr. Klima has climbed the mast." New York Times

Ivan Klíma

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