Ivan Klíma

Ivan Klíma (born 14 September 1931, Prague) is a Czech novelist and playwright. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Less well known than the work of his contemporary Milan Kundera, Klíma' s writings are generally seen to be much more overtly political, though there are numerous similarities between their works, most notably a tendency towards adultery in their protagonists. Klima's early childhood in Prague was happy and une... more

Ivan Klíma (born 14 September 1931, Prague) is a Czech novelist and playwright. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Less well known than the work of his contemporary Milan Kundera, Klíma' s writings are generally seen to be much more overtly political, though there are numerous similarities between their works, most notably a tendency towards adultery in their protagonists. Klima's early childhood in Prague was happy and uneventful, but this all changed with the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, after the Munich Agreement. He had been unaware that both his parents had Jewish ancestry; neither were observant Jews, but this was immaterial to the Germans. In November 1941, first his father, and then in December, he and his mother and brother were ordered to leave for the concentration camp at Terezín, where he was to remain until liberation by the Red Army in May, 1945. Both he and his parents survived incarceration - a miracle at that time - Terezín was... less