SOURCE: Bradbrook, B. R. Review of The Spirit of Prague and Other Essays, by Ivan Klíma. World Literature Today 69, no. 3 (summer 1995): 610.

In the following review, Bradbrook evaluates the essays in The Spirit of Prague, providing brief summaries of the major thematic material, including Klíma's childhood, his opinions regarding dissident writers, and the history of Prague.

“In themselves, extreme experiences do not open the way to wisdom,” says Ivan Klíma in one of his essays in the collection The Spirit of Prague, which in fact contains much wisdom resulting precisely from the extreme experiences the author had to endure. Muses may be silenced by oppression, but human thought matures and takes shape by experience in such conditions; the number of excellent essays by Czech dissident writers prove that.

The essay is a comparatively new genre in Czech literature, used widely by Karel Čapek (1890-1938), a great...