We mourn the passing of Ivan Klima, the revered Czech novelist, who died Saturday at the age of 94. Klima’s remarkable life saw him endure and brilliantly chronicle the oppressive realities of two totalitarian eras – first under the Nazis, then under communism. His insightful work stands as a testament to the human spirit under authoritarian rule, making him one of Eastern Europe’s most profound literary voices.
His son, Michal, shared the news of his father’s passing on social media, though further details were not immediately available.
Klima was a prolific force, authoring over 40 books, while also serving as a courageous dissident, dedicated teacher, and sharp critic. A defining moment in his early life—his imprisonment as a boy by the Nazis at Terezin concentration camp from 1941-45—left an indelible mark. During those harrowing years, the constant threat of transfer to Auschwitz loomed. This profound experience fueled some of his most impactful short stories and novels, including ‘Judge on Trial,’ which powerfully captured the horrors he witnessed.
Yet, it was the communist era that most thoroughly permeated his writing, particularly the period following the 1968 Prague Spring. This brief window of liberation saw Klima and fellow intellectuals champion the reforms of Alexander Dubcek, who envisioned ‘Socialism with a human face’ for Czechoslovakia. However, this glimmer of hope was brutally extinguished later that year when an estimated 750,000 Warsaw Pact troops were dispatched by the Soviets to crush the burgeoning Prague reforms.
While many prominent dissident writers like Milan Kundera, Josef Skvorecky, and Pavel Kohout were exiled, Klima chose a different path. After an authorized sabbatical in the United States, he returned to Prague in 1970. There, he became a pivotal figure in the underground literary scene, publishing forbidden texts and even discreetly getting some published in the West. He bravely challenged the regime by hosting a vibrant (and famously wine-fueled) secret literary salon, a gathering point for other brave voices, including the future Czech president, Vaclav Havel.
Jiri Pehe, director of New York University in Prague, lauded Klima as ‘one of the greatest Czech writers,’ stating that ‘having experienced concentration camps and the communist period, is a walking symbol of what our country endured in this century.’ Pehe further emphasized that Klima was ‘more than a literary figure; he played a crucial role in publishing banned works and challenging the communist regime.’
His defiance as a dissident often meant taking on humble, non-literary jobs—like sweeping streets, laying bricks, or working as a hospital orderly. These experiences profoundly influenced his short story collection, ‘My Golden Trades.’ In these tales, his characters were not idealized heroes but ordinary people navigating difficult compromises within the half-century of dictatorial rule in Czechoslovakia. Many of these stories were initially circulated secretly as ‘samizdat’ copies among friends in Prague.
His global renown truly solidified in 1990 with a New York Review of Books cover story penned by his friend, the acclaimed American novelist Philip Roth. Roth, who had visited Klima numerous times in Prague, affectionately described him, with his distinctive pageboy haircut, as ‘a much more intellectually evolved Ringo Starr.’
Following the collapse of communism in 1989, Klima turned his pen to portray the struggles of those who had dutifully served the dictatorship, now grappling with a sense of displacement and uncertainty in a newly democratic nation. Post-1989, his books ‘My Merry Mornings’ and ‘Love and Garbage’ were swiftly published, each selling over 100,000 copies. Today, his extensive body of work is available in numerous languages worldwide.
Born Ivan Kauders on September 9, 1931, in Prague, Klima grew up in a secular Jewish family. His father, Vilem, worked as an industrial engineer, while his mother, Marta, cared for Ivan and his brother. However, his childhood was tragically cut short at the age of seven when Nazi forces invaded Czechoslovakia.
Klima later recounted the profound impact of wearing the yellow star, saying, ‘When I had to wear the yellow star, I felt that I was somebody who was hunted, an outlaw.’ He vividly remembered German children shouting ‘Jew! Jew!’ at him, instilling a deep sense of shame. Paradoxically, he found a semblance of relief in Terezin, where, he noted, ‘the insults stopped.’
It was within the confines of Terezin that Klima first discovered writing, a sanctuary for his imagination amidst unimaginable terror. He and his parents miraculously survived, a fate he believed was largely due to his father’s role as the camp’s electrician, which designated him an ‘essential’ worker.
Reflecting on this formative period, he wrote, ‘Anyone who has been through a concentration camp as a child, who has been completely dependent on an external power, which can at any moment come in and beat or kill him and everyone around him — probably moves through life at least a bit differently from people who have been spared such an education.’ He powerfully summarized his childhood lesson: ‘That life can be snapped like a piece of string — that was my daily lesson as a child.’
These early experiences profoundly shaped his literary themes. In ‘Miriam,’ a story from his 1988 collection ‘My First Loves,’ a young narrator in a ghetto finds himself drawn to a girl who volunteers at a soup kitchen in Nazi-occupied Prague. Their budding friendship is tragically severed when the deportations of Jews to death camps commence.
Ivan adopted the surname Klima during his teenage years. After earning a philosophy degree from Charles University in Prague in 1956, he spent five years working at a publishing house. His debut novel, ‘An Hour of Silence,’ released in 1963, delved into the complex space between idealism and disillusionment. From 1964 to 1967, he served as editor for Literarni Noviny, a prominent platform for liberal Communist intellectuals, before moving to Literarni List.
In a defiant act at the 1967 annual assembly of the Czechoslovak Literary Association, Klima addressed the attendees as ‘respected friends’ instead of the expected ‘comrades.’ He passionately advocated for the abolition of censorship, highlighting that press freedom had been guaranteed in Czechoslovakia since 1867, thereby exposing Communist law as a regressive step.
Jiri Hendrych, the party secretary for ideological matters, responded with a dismissive, ‘Now you writers have crapped on yourselves.’ The assembled writers reacted with boos and jeers. Klima fondly remembered it as ‘a beautiful noise,’ remarking, ‘What we demanded then was the most normal thing in the world.’
Just two months later, Klima was expelled from the party, facing a publishing ban that would silence his work until the 1989 Velvet Revolution ushered in a new era.
After his sabbatical in the United States, Klima made the conscious decision to return to Prague in 1970. There, he became a signatory of Charter 77, a powerful manifesto penned by over 1,000 Czech and Slovak intellectuals protesting government repression, and quickly emerged as an influential figure within the Czech literary underground.
Many consider ‘Judge on Trial’ his masterpiece. This novel was crafted during his two decades of enforced literary silence, completed in 1986, and initially circulated covertly through samizdat. It would not see official publication until 1991.
This captivating work is both a thriller and a domestic tragedy, presenting a dual narrative of Adam Kindl, a rigid, low-ranking judge. He grapples with the profound moral quandary of presiding over a double murder trial despite his opposition to capital punishment. Rather than resigning, Kindl utilizes the case as a vehicle to confront his own past.
Ultimately, the narrative serves as a powerful reminder that the Czech people perpetually navigate the profound weight and consequences of their collective memory.
His acclaimed novel ‘Love and Garbage,’ also from this prolific period, centers on a disgraced writer forced to work as a street cleaner. Through his daily toil, he contemplates the stark dualities of existence: ‘At one end of the spectrum ubiquitous rubbish and the frequent reduction, in our time, of people to disposable waste; at the other, the longing for transcendence and the saving union of love.’
Following 1989, Klima retreated from public life, dedicating the next two decades almost entirely to his writing. This period produced his monumental two-volume memoir, ‘My Crazy Century,’ in which he unsparingly labeled Communism a ‘criminal conspiracy against democracy.’ Reviewing the memoir for The New York Times, journalist Paul Berman characterized it as a ‘ferocious’ work, filled with ‘a bellowing anger at what has happened to many millions of people, himself included, victims of the serial horrors that used to be known, and maybe still are known, as totalitarianism.’
In 1958, Klima married psychotherapist Helena Mala, with whom he had two children. Details regarding other surviving family members were not immediately released.
Despite the pervasive existential angst in his writing, Klima maintained that his work was always tempered by a fundamental optimism. As he once stated after the publication of ‘Judge On Trial,’ ‘My books may seem somewhat depressing, but they always offer a little hope. I could not write a book without hope.’
Note: David Binder, a former European correspondent for The Times and co-author of this article, passed away in 2019.