Ivan Klima (1931–2025)
Author of Love and Garbage
About the Author
Author and playwright Ivan Klima was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1931. In 1968, he acted as an editor for the journal of the Czech Writer's Union. Following that, he was briefly a professor at the University of Michigan before returning to his homeland in 1970. His works, which include The show more Spirit of Prague, a collection of essays, were banned in Czechoslovakia until 1989. They address issues such as totalitarianism and intellectual freedom, which Klima also lectures on. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Ivan Klima
Ούτε άγιοι ούτε άγγελοι 1 copy
Má veselá jitra 1 copy
Markétin zvěřinec 1 copy
Ljubav i smeće 1 copy
Ljeto ljubavi 1 copy
Associated Works
Description of a Struggle: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Eastern European Writing (1994) — Introduction — 79 copies, 1 review
Who's Writing This? Notations on the Authorial I, with Self-Portraits {not Antæus} (1995) — Contributor — 76 copies
Here I Am: Contemporary Jewish Stories from Around the World (1998) — Contributor — 57 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1931-09-14
- Date of death
- 2025-10-04
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- playwright
novelist
short story writer
Holocaust survivor
memoirist - Awards and honors
- Franz Kafka Prize (2002)
- Short biography
- Ivan Klíma (Praag, 14 december 1931) verbleef tijdens de tweede wereldoorlog in het concentratiekamp Theresiënstadt. In de jaren vijftig studeerde hij Tsjechische taal- en letterkunde en begon in 1959 met het schrijven van prozawerken en toneelstukken. Hij maakte deel uit van de redactie van het literaire weekblad Literární noviny en trad op de voorgrond tijdens de Praagse Lente. Na de inval van 1968 door Warschautroepen kreeg hij een publicatieverbod: gedurende twintig jaar kon zijn werk uitsluitend in het buitenland verschijnen. Klíma zelf schreef hierover: ‘Ik ben een Tsjech. Dit is mijn land. Ik zal misschien jaren van mijn leven schrijven voor de bureaulade en mijn geld verdienen als straatveger, maar ik moet doen wat ik kan.’ Sinds de fluwelen revolutie van 1989 publiceert hij als nooit tevoren.
- Nationality
- Czechoslovakia
Czech Republic - Birthplace
- Prague, Czechoslovakia
- Places of residence
- Prague, Czechoslovakia (birth ∙ now Czech Republic)
Theresienstadt concentration camp - Map Location
- Czech Republic
Members
Reviews
Waiting for the Light, Waiting for the Dark by Ivan Klima
In 1968 when the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia, Klima was in London. Unlike the quarter of a million Czechs, including the writers Skvorecky and Kundera, who escaped into exile, Klima chose to return to Prague. His books were banned for twenty years, but smuggled out in samizdat and published overseas.
The book's main character is Pavel Fuca, a film director who can no longer make his own films, so works as a camera man under state show more censorship producing trivia and sacrificing his principles to expedience. Pavel consoles himself by planning the film he will make when he is free, but when that freedom arrives he has already lost hope.
Some passages that made an impression:
Wretchedness was the lot of those who hadn't the strength to be honourable nor the courage to be dishonourable.
There's nothing easier than persuading yourself you could really do something if you tried, as long as you know that you'll never get the chance. the system never allowed you to win, and so it saved you from defeat as well. show less
In 1968 when the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia, Klima was in London. Unlike the quarter of a million Czechs, including the writers Skvorecky and Kundera, who escaped into exile, Klima chose to return to Prague. His books were banned for twenty years, but smuggled out in samizdat and published overseas.
The book's main character is Pavel Fuca, a film director who can no longer make his own films, so works as a camera man under state show more censorship producing trivia and sacrificing his principles to expedience. Pavel consoles himself by planning the film he will make when he is free, but when that freedom arrives he has already lost hope.
Some passages that made an impression:
Wretchedness was the lot of those who hadn't the strength to be honourable nor the courage to be dishonourable.
There's nothing easier than persuading yourself you could really do something if you tried, as long as you know that you'll never get the chance. the system never allowed you to win, and so it saved you from defeat as well. show less
"A city is like a person: if we don't establish a genuine realationship with it, it remains a name, an external form that soon fades from our minds. To create this relationship, we must be able to observe the city and understand its peculiar personality, its'I', its spirit, its identity, the circumstances of its life as they evolved through space and time." (p 39, "The Spirit of Prague")
I read Ivan Klíma’s wonderful collection of essays The Spirit of Prague, in connection for a Basic show more Program class on the literature of Prague. Klima has a simple style of writing, with a wonderful clarity and quiet authority.
The book is divided into five sections of essays. The first section includes the titular essay but the longest one opens the book. In this essay, entitled with characteristic understated irony "A Rather Unconventional Childhood", Klima writes of his childhood which coincided, in Eastern Europe, with the triumph of Nazism and his confinement (as a Jew) in the transit camp of Terezin. From and early age he was a reader:
"I read. Of all the books I owned, I was most excited by a prose retelling of Homer's two epics. I read them over and over again, until I knew whole pages by heart."(p. 15)
Later, when he has been transported to the camp he uses a wry, observational tone to devastating effect:
‘I also experienced my first real friendships at this time which , as I later came to understand, were really only prefigurations of the adolescent infatuations that transform every encounter, every casual conversation into an experience of singular importance. All those friendships ended tragically; my friends, boys and girls, went to the gas chamber, all except one, the one I truly loved, Arieh, a son of the chairman of the camp prisoners’ self-management committee, who was shot at the age of twelve.’(p. 20)
His experiences in the camp, and later under the communist regimes of the post-war years, lead him to the conclusion that "if we don't learn from catastrophes and if we don't accept these simple principles, the moment when we might have done something to decide the fate of mankind will pass us by."(p. 27)
Klima's observations in this essay are telling and are reminiscent of other books, including: Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl; Night by Elie Weisel; Fatelessness by Imre Kertész; Speak You Also by Paul Steinberg; The Long Voyage by Jorge Semprun; and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi.
The remainder of the collection includes further excursions into reading and literature, a commentary on Kafka as a source of inspiration, and a discussion of totalitarianism as seen from the perspective of Czech culture. The erudition and intensity of these essays along with Klima's lucid style made this collection a joy to read. I would recommend it to fans of Joseph Roth and other astute observers of mitteleuropean culture. show less
I read Ivan Klíma’s wonderful collection of essays The Spirit of Prague, in connection for a Basic show more Program class on the literature of Prague. Klima has a simple style of writing, with a wonderful clarity and quiet authority.
The book is divided into five sections of essays. The first section includes the titular essay but the longest one opens the book. In this essay, entitled with characteristic understated irony "A Rather Unconventional Childhood", Klima writes of his childhood which coincided, in Eastern Europe, with the triumph of Nazism and his confinement (as a Jew) in the transit camp of Terezin. From and early age he was a reader:
"I read. Of all the books I owned, I was most excited by a prose retelling of Homer's two epics. I read them over and over again, until I knew whole pages by heart."(p. 15)
Later, when he has been transported to the camp he uses a wry, observational tone to devastating effect:
‘I also experienced my first real friendships at this time which , as I later came to understand, were really only prefigurations of the adolescent infatuations that transform every encounter, every casual conversation into an experience of singular importance. All those friendships ended tragically; my friends, boys and girls, went to the gas chamber, all except one, the one I truly loved, Arieh, a son of the chairman of the camp prisoners’ self-management committee, who was shot at the age of twelve.’(p. 20)
His experiences in the camp, and later under the communist regimes of the post-war years, lead him to the conclusion that "if we don't learn from catastrophes and if we don't accept these simple principles, the moment when we might have done something to decide the fate of mankind will pass us by."(p. 27)
Klima's observations in this essay are telling and are reminiscent of other books, including: Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl; Night by Elie Weisel; Fatelessness by Imre Kertész; Speak You Also by Paul Steinberg; The Long Voyage by Jorge Semprun; and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi.
The remainder of the collection includes further excursions into reading and literature, a commentary on Kafka as a source of inspiration, and a discussion of totalitarianism as seen from the perspective of Czech culture. The erudition and intensity of these essays along with Klima's lucid style made this collection a joy to read. I would recommend it to fans of Joseph Roth and other astute observers of mitteleuropean culture. show less
This is the fourth of Klíma's books that I've read and it maintains the standard of work I encountered in the others. It comprises four tales, the second and third of which are effectively novellas. As ever, in this translation, at least, they're beautifully told.
Klíma has personal experience of some of the most extreme events in recent European history and this alone lends his work heft. The first of the tales concerns first love in a Jewish ghetto where the inhabitants are awaiting show more transportation. Needless to say, it's a moving piece. The second tale, featuring a teenage boy's obsession with a married woman in her twenties is droll but the slightest of the pieces, reminding me of Stefan Zweig...
It is in the third and fourth tales that Klíma hits his stride, for this reader, anyway. 'The Truth Game' is something of a trial run for the novel, 'A Summer Affair', but hugely enjoyable, nonetheless, in its portrayal of romantic cynicism and political intrigue in communist Czechoslovakia. In 'The Tightrope Walkers' the narrator toys with the affections of his best friend's girlfriend who has fallen hopelessly in love with him. It illuminates a previously unseen corner in the old trope of the love triangle.
Highly recommended. show less
Klíma has personal experience of some of the most extreme events in recent European history and this alone lends his work heft. The first of the tales concerns first love in a Jewish ghetto where the inhabitants are awaiting show more transportation. Needless to say, it's a moving piece. The second tale, featuring a teenage boy's obsession with a married woman in her twenties is droll but the slightest of the pieces, reminding me of Stefan Zweig...
It is in the third and fourth tales that Klíma hits his stride, for this reader, anyway. 'The Truth Game' is something of a trial run for the novel, 'A Summer Affair', but hugely enjoyable, nonetheless, in its portrayal of romantic cynicism and political intrigue in communist Czechoslovakia. In 'The Tightrope Walkers' the narrator toys with the affections of his best friend's girlfriend who has fallen hopelessly in love with him. It illuminates a previously unseen corner in the old trope of the love triangle.
Highly recommended. show less
I discovered Klíma by accident. No one I know has ever mentioned his name to me. His books tend not to be in the stores of English retailers. And then I found a couple of his novels in a second hand bookstore. That name piqued my interest. One of the two turned out to be the excellent 'Love and Garbage'. I became a convert. A few years later, I found 'A Summer Affair' in a similar store...
This novel is tautly written and compels the reader ineluctably toward its tragic conclusion. I can show more imagine some readers disliking the book because they disapprove of/cannot identify with the protagonist. That's to miss the point, I feel. In the grand tradition of 'Lear', it's about folly and obsession and losing everything. We're not meant to admire David as he destroys his family, himself and his lover. The twist at the end would have more impact if Klíma hadn't botched it by signposting it too obviously, but it's still powerful.
Beyond the beautifully spare prose, there are some other nice touches. I found the switching at key moments between omniscient third person narrator and first person narrative highly effective. The characters of the two lovers were believable too. If you enjoy reading about the interplay between human relations and philosophy - the Kundera parallels become unavoidable here - then this book may be for you. show less
This novel is tautly written and compels the reader ineluctably toward its tragic conclusion. I can show more imagine some readers disliking the book because they disapprove of/cannot identify with the protagonist. That's to miss the point, I feel. In the grand tradition of 'Lear', it's about folly and obsession and losing everything. We're not meant to admire David as he destroys his family, himself and his lover. The twist at the end would have more impact if Klíma hadn't botched it by signposting it too obviously, but it's still powerful.
Beyond the beautifully spare prose, there are some other nice touches. I found the switching at key moments between omniscient third person narrator and first person narrative highly effective. The characters of the two lovers were believable too. If you enjoy reading about the interplay between human relations and philosophy - the Kundera parallels become unavoidable here - then this book may be for you. show less
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