His setting is “the Institute,” whose mission is to combat the “irrational tendencies” in society through its scientific work. Personal and professional relationships at this “lighthouse of truthful knowledge” are a tissue of lies and sycophancy in which all concerned willingly collude.The only tempest in this teapot of careerism is Dr Foustka, who has lately been smitten by metaphysical doubt and is rumored to be dabbling in the black arts. His mentor, the unlikely Mephistopheles of the piece, is a dwarflike old man with smelly feet and a slippery logic that irresistibly appeals to Foustka’s intellectual hubris. With great wit and originality Havel follows the familiar outlines of the story to a unique conclusion at a “witches’ sabbath” garden party organized by the Institute’s crafty director in the spirit of “modern group-costume therapy.”For Havel, the “rational” carried to surreal lengths of irrationality is not a theatrical technique but a fact of life in Czechoslovakia since the Soviet invasion of 1968. Yet in universalizing his tale through the Faust legend, he forcefully reminds us that under conditions of modern bureaucracy neither East nor West holds a monopoly on the sale of souls.

    Vita Nuova showcases Hrabal’s legendarybohemian intellectual life, particularly his relationship with VladimírBoudník. Hrabal creates a shrewd, lively portrait of Eastern Europeanintellectual life in the mid-twentieth century.

    But the town is in the world, and the world is in the throes of radical change. The influence of expressionism of Hostovsky's early work is evident, with a mix of mysticism, irony, and wit. Exiled to America during World War II, when his Jewish family perished in the concentration camps, Hostovsky saw many of his later works published in the US, Britain and throughout Europe.

    The downtrodden residents struggle and scheme to move into better apartments using sex, violence, and deceit to get what they want. In the process, it becomes apparent that they are no better and may be worse than those that they have pushed aside. This novel brilliantly asserts that ideologies may change, but human nature never does.

    

    Allied forces liberate Nazi-occupied Brno, Moravia. For Gerta Schnirch, daughter of a Czech mother and a German father aligned with Hitler, it’s not deliverance; it’s a sentence. She has been branded an enemy of the state. Caught in the changing tides of a war that shattered her family—and her innocence—Gerta must obey the official order: she, along with all ethnic Germans, is to be expelled from Czechoslovakia. With nothing but the clothes on her back and an infant daughter, she’s herded among thousands, driven from the only home she’s ever known. But the injustice only makes Gerta stronger, more empowered, and more resolved to seek justice. Her journey is a relentless quest for a seemingly impossible forgiveness. And one day, she will return.Spanning decades and generations, Kateřina Tučková’s breathtaking novel illuminates a long-neglected episode in Czech history. One of exclusion and prejudice, of collective shame versus personal guilt, all through the eyes of a charismatic woman whose courage will affect all the lives she’s touched. Especially that of the daughter she loved, fought for, shielded, and would come to inspire.

    The Republic of Whores takes place on an army base in rural Czechoslovakia, where the draftees of the Seventh Tank Battalion reluctantly prepare for the inevitable war with America. This is life in the Czechoslovak Stalinist People's Democratic Army at its most insane, bawdy, and raw. It's a romp through the idiocies that prevailed under Soviet occupation and bred fear and nonsense. For all the rules and regulations of oppression, though, the human spirit triumphs here. With endearing ideological indifference, the young men fake tank maneuvers, study Russian texts with horror novels tucked inside, and mock patriotic songs with their own lyrics. Tank Commander Danny Smiricky, the hero of many Skvorecky novels, is at his most subversive and charming. While Danny tries to cope with his boisterous, not-too-bright, homesick troop, he dreams of love and of getting out of the army by fair means or foul. Behind Skvorecky's characteristic ironic humor and sensual detail is the menacing shadow of thoughtless political dogma, personified in Major Borvicka (the Pygmy Devil). The Major would sell his soul (and his fellow soldiers) for Soviet accolades. Meanwhile, the troops will do whatever possible to undermine their rigid, Soviet-loving officers, while taking instructions on everything from compulsory reading tests to history, sex, and love. The drama comes to a head at the Cultural Farewell Party where the soldiers show exactly what they think of "political correctness" and their doctrine-drunk Major.

    One need not accept his view of the world to experience it and enjoy it in all of its ambiguity, just as one does the stage.— Václav HavelPhilosopher, novelist, essayist, eccentric, no other Czech author has had a greater impact on underground culture than Ladislav Klíma (1878-1928). Mentor to artists as varied as Bohumil Hrabal and the Plastic People of the Universe, Klíma’s philosophy was radically subjectivist, and he felt it should be lived rather than merely spoken or written about. With Nietzsche as his paragon, he embarked upon a lifelong pursuit to become God, or Absolute Will, elucidating this quest in many letters, aphorisms, and essays. Yet among Klíma's fictional texts, the apotheosis of his philosophy is The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch, his most acclaimed novel. Ostensibly a series of journal entries, the tale chronicles the descent into madness of Prince Sternenhoch, the German Empire’s foremost aristocrat and favorite of Kaiser “Willy.” Having become the “lowliest worm” at the hands of his estranged wife, Helga, the Queen of Hells, Sternenhoch eventually attains an ultimate state of bliss and salvation through the most grotesque perversions. Klíma explores here the paradoxical nature of pure spirituality with a humor that is as darkly comical as it is obscene. This volume also includes his notorious text “My Autobiography.”

    In completing a standard employment questionnaire, narrator Jan Kepka manages to write a beautifully impressionistic history of his life, his family, and his hometown as he obeys - with mock solemnity - the handwritten command on top of the form: "DO NOT CROSS OUT."

    Together they must play out a game in which the stakes are their lives. The New York Times called this book "A heartstopping parable" and The Washington Post said "Majestic, never to be forgotten."

    His unique approaches to the mysteries of justice and truth are full of the ordinary and the extraordinary, humor and humanism.

    Simultaneously satiric and philosophical, The Opportune Moment, 1855, opens with an Italian anarchist’s missive to his noble former mistress, an impassioned rejection of all of Europe’s latest and greatest advancements, from the Enlightenment to social reform to communist revolution. We then leap back in time half a century to the alternately somber and hilarious shipboard diary of a common Italian everyman sailing to Brazil with a motley, multinational band of idealists, to build a new society. A pitiless portrait of the often unbridgeable gap between theory and practice, The Opportune Moment, 1855 is another uproarious and unsettling attack on convention by one of literature’s great provocateurs.

    Little Anna huddles with her doll in the corner of a train car while a German officer shrieks, “You are Jews!” Fleeing for their lives, her family has abandoned their elegant house near Prague Castle, bringing their life of privilege to an abrupt halt.In this memoir that reads like a novel, we meet Anna’s shining and beautiful opera singer mother, her prominent lawyer father, and their circle of friends that includes Albert Schweitzer and the family of Czech President Thomas Masaryk.Through Anna’s eyes, we relive magical Christmases, summers in the country, and a terrifying trip to Nazi Dresden that changes everything. We experience the family’s escape, their voyage to Ellis Island, and Anna's struggle to become an American girl in a city teeming with immigrants and prejudice. Post-war life brings cherished Holocaust survivors and their harrowing stories.After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Anna’s family sues for the return of their house in Prague. But will they prevail? And if they do, what then?The House in Prague is richly illustrated with pictures and artifacts from the author’s family archive. Written with straightforward, lyrical clarity, the members of her family and the many famous musicians, authors, and poets that pass through their lives come alive for the reader. A gripping story on its own merits, this tale of war, love, and loss dares us to think about the immigrant experience in fresh ways.Index included."An exquisite rumination on history, loss, and love. Anna Perlberg's voice is a luminous guide to the heart of home - hers, but also, as is true of all great stories, ours." (Caroline Heller, author of Reading Claudius: A Memoir in Two Parts)

    As he works, he meditates on Czechoslovakia, on Kafka, on life, on art and, obsessively, on his passionate and adulterous love affair with the sculptress Daria. Gradually he admits the impossibility of being at once an honest writer and an honest lover, and with that agonizing discovery comes a moment of choice.