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".
A visionary work of science fiction that introduced the word "robot" Written in 1920, premiered in Prague in 1921, and first performed in New York in 1922—garnered worldwide acclaim for its author and popularized the word robot. Mass-produced as efficient laborers to serve man, Capek’s Robots are an android product—they remember everything but think of nothing new. But the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning, and the humans they serve stop reproducing. When the Robots revolt, killing all but one of their masters, they must strain to learn the secret of self-duplication. It is not until two Robots fall in love and are christened “Adam” and “Eve” by the last surviving human that Nature emerges triumphant. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
A collection of contemporary East European writing. In Ants, a Russian learns to love the bugs which infest his body, in Retina, the son of a Polish concentration camp survivor becomes a terrorist, in Big Business, people pose as Rumanian beggars in the Paris Metro in order to earn a living.
"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 offence 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
As they engage in an adulterous affair in the Czech capital, Prague, a married Protestant minister finds himself losing his faith, while by contrast his atheistic mistress discovers God. By the author of Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light.
