Ivan Klima, Craig Cravens (TRN) My Crazy Century

Annotation

More than memoir, Klima explores the ways in which the epoch and its dominating ideologies impacted the lives, character, and morality of his generation. 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 post-war 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 experiences with the arrest and trial of his father, the early revolt of young writers against socialist realism, his first literary successes, and his travels to the free part of Europe, which strengthened his awareness of living in the midst of a colossal lie. Klima also captures the brief period of liberation during the Prague Spring of 1968, in which he played an active role, the Soviet invasion that crushed the political reforms, and the rise of the dissident movement up until the collapse of the communist regime in the midst of the Velvet Revolution of November, 1989. Including insightful essays on topics related to social history, political thinking, love and freedom, "My Crazy Century" provides a profoundly rich and moving personal history of national evolution. Ivan Klima's first autobiography and perhaps his most significant work, it encapsulates a remarkable life from the vantage point of one lived under occupation.