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Pages 3-11

• The novel opens in a hotel room on January 11, 1976 in New York City.

• Nathan Zuckerman, an American novelist, meets Zdenek Sisovsky, a Czech writer whose writing is banned in Czechoslovakia.

• Sisovsky flatters Zuckerman, saying he is a great American writer.

• Sisovsky refuses to tell Zuckerman why his book is banned, but Zuckerman presses.
• Sisovsky explains his satirical book is banned because the Russians chose to ban it.

• Sisovsky also explains that if he stayed in Czechoslovakia, the authorities would not let him write or speak in public.

• Writers and intellectuals become persecuted in Czechoslovakia because Czechoslovakia accepts the Soviet occupation.
• Sisovsky says he can be Czech in Czechoslovakia, but not a writer; however, in the US, he is only a writer.

• Sisovsky introduces his mistress, Eva Kalinova, saying she is full of hate, but was a famous Chekhovian actress in Prague.

• Eva Kalinova cannot act in...

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