The renowned Czech novelist charts the history of Prague from World War II to the Velvet Revolution in a series of essays. While mostly about the city, literature and politics, the essays explore Klima's own history, his childhood experience in a Nazi concentration camp. Klima's translator Paul Wilson wrote: "This collection of essays by one of Europe's most brilliant and humane novelists charts five critical decades in the history of Czechoslovakia. In the title essay, Klima invokes the spirit of the city that has shaped and sustained him: ironical, cultured, accustomed to adversity but full of hope; a spirit embodied by his heroes, Kafka, Hasek and Havel; and one which informs Klima's own unique perspective in fifty years of writing."  (CZH05, $16.95)