The Spirit of Prague

This collection of essays by one of Europe's most brilliant novelists - whose work was banned in the Czech Republic until very recently - charts five critical decades in the history of his country through the eyes of its elegant yet long-suffering capital city. Born in Prague in 1931, Kl'ma witnessed the horrors of Nazi occupation and the Stalinist regimes of the 1950s, and lived through monumental events such as the celebrations of the Prague Spring, the despair of the Soviet invasion in 1968 and the triumph of the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The title essay evokes the spirit of the city with which he has shared these turbulent years, and the whole volume is imbued with a sense of the irony, hopefulness, stoicism and deep-seated culturedness that typifies this most splendid of cities. (Kirkus UK)

Softcover. English. Publisher: Granta. 1998. 188pp. In fair condition.