Ivan Klíma
Czech
1931-
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Ivan Klíma is a Czech writer who was banned in his own
country by the communist government after the 1968 Prague
Spring reforms. One of about two hundred banned Czech
writers, Klíma chose not to emigrate, unlike his fellow
dissidents Milan Kundera and Josef Skvorecky, preferring
to stay at home and write as best he could under the existing
constraints. "Ivan Klíma," according to Eva
Hoffman in the New York Times Book Review, "is
among those urbane, plain-spoken literary spirits whose
work travels successfully across political systems, as
well as across continents."
During the communist government's ban on writers' work,
an underground movement was formed in Czechoslovakia to
circulate typewritten manuscripts among interested readers.
The Russian term for writing circulated in this fashion
is samizdat, generally translated as "writing
for the desk-drawer." Circulating and reading samizdat
writings were considered criminal offenses, so the reader
as well as the writer took a risk in participating in
the movement. After the collapse of the Czech communist
government, restrictions loosened and efforts were made
to reintegrate banned writers into Czech society and liberalize
controls on the arts. Klíma was an active member and spokesperson
for the revived Czech branch of PEN; in 1990 he became
its president. (Contemporary Authors)
For more information check out the display in Burling
or visit his page in Literary
Resource Center online...
Related Authors:
Milan Kundera (1929-)
Josef Skvorecky (1924-)
Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997)
Ludvik Vaculik (1926-)
Vaclav Havel (1936-)
