Ivan Klíma Livres

Dans la Prague des années quatre-vingt, un écrivain célèbre tombé en disgrâce abandonne temporairement l'essai qu'il rédige sur Kafka. Tous les matins, à six heures, il endosse la veste orange des balayeurs et, en compagnie de son équipe, arpente les rues de la ville. Ponctuées par le rythme régulier du balai, les pensées se succèdent. ET la quête des ordures quotidiennes fait place à une exploration du passé - souvenirs déchirants du camp de Terezin où le narrateur fut déporté enfant - , une méditation sur la littérature en général et Kafka en particulier, une évocation lancinante de sa liaison adultère. Ce portrait riche et pénétrant d'un homme et d'un artiste, dont le caractère autobiographique est patent, consacre Amour et Ordures comme le roman le plus important sur la Tchécoslovaquie d' " avant-Havel ".

Adam, a judge in Communist Czechoslovakia, falls under government suspicion after travelling abroad and being seen with the wrong people. So as to prove his political credentials, he is asked to deliver a verdict of guilty on a suspected murderer. By the author of "A Summer Affair".

Forty-three distinguished writers from sixteen Eastern European nations--including Poland, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Albania--provide illuminating studies of the absurdities, tragedies, and conditions of their homelands and the world at large. Original.

"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."--Jacket

Ivan Klima's story begins in the 1930s, in the Terezin concentration camp outside of Prague, where he was forced to spend almost four years of his childhood. He reveals how the postwar atmosphere supported and encouraged the spread of communist principles over the next few decades and how an informal movement to change the system developed inside the Party. These political events form the backdrop to Klima's personal experiences, encapsulating a remarkable life largely lived under occupation."

In this collection of political and personal essays, the novelist Ivan Klima charts five decades in the history of Czechoslovakia -- from the Nazi occupation to the Velvet Revolution. Klima invokes the spirit of the city that shaped him: ironical, cultured, accustomed to adversity but full of hope. Other essays deal with his childhood experiences in a concentration camp; an interview by Philip Roth and a study of Kafka are also included.

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 offense could lead to surveillance, and where contraband books were the currency of the underworld.

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