SOURCE: Klíma, Ivan, and Mark Schapiro. “Fading Czech Velvet.” Nation 268, no. 18 (17 May 1999): 38-41.

In the following interview, Klíma discusses how Czech literature has changed since the political reconstruction of the country.

As I'm driven to the home of Ivan Klima, one of the Czech Republic's most internationally respected writers, the hand of fate slips in beside me in the taxi. Heading into the remote, hilly outskirts of Prague 4, I fumble to show the driver my scrawled address, but he tells me I needn't bother: He used to live right next door to Klima. They were neighbors almost two decades ago.

Has he read any of Klima's books? The driver shakes his head; he was a taxi driver then too, a relatively privileged position. Reading his notorious neighbor, one of the founders of Communist-era Czechoslovakia's samizdat press, he could have lost his position in a flash.

Has...