SOURCE: Klíma, Ivan, and Rob Trucks. “A Conversation with Ivan Klíma.” New England Review 20, no. 2 (spring 1999): 77-87.

In the following interview, Klíma discusses his body of work, his major themes, and his opinions on Czech literature.

NOTE: The writings of sixty-six-year-old Ivan Klíma were banned in his native Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia) following the Prague Spring of 1968. Unlike fellow Czech prose artists Milan Kundera and Josef Skvorecky, Klíma chose not to emigrate. He remained in Prague where his writings were only available through samizdat, a network of writers who distributed typed copies of each other's manuscripts.

An accomplished playwright and essayist (The Spirit of Prague), Klíma is best known in the Western world for his fiction, including the short story collections My Merry Mornings and My Golden Trades, and the novels Love and Garbage, Judge on Trial, and his...