Through four sensuous tales, a young man traces his harsh coming of age in Czechoslovakia, where faith in love, country and human kindness must hold out against increasing political disillusionment. His first affections move from a young kitchen girl in the Jewish ghetto who fills his glass tall with scarce milk to a restless married woman, an undercover spy, and a frail woman who can't escape her past suffering. It is Ivan Klima's keen, ironic eye and naive, lyrical timbre that suffuses these stories with their richness of detail. Klima's work was banned in his native Czechoslovakia, where he was published in samizdat.
- ISBN10 0701130148
- ISBN13 9780701130145
- Publish Date 1 January 1900
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 20 October 2011
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Chatto & Windus
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 224
- Language English