Ivan Klima, the distinguished Czech novelist renowned for chronicling the human spirit under the weight of not one, but two totalitarian regimes—first Nazi, then communist—passed away Saturday at the age of 94.
His son, Michal, confirmed his father’s passing on the social media platform X, though no additional details were immediately released.
Author of over 40 books, a vocal dissident, educator, and astute critic, Klima’s early life profoundly influenced his work. His formative years included incarceration by the Nazis at the Terezin concentration camp near Prague from 1941 to 1945, where he lived under the constant threat of transfer to Auschwitz. This harrowing period became a wellspring for some of his most impactful novels and short stories, notably ‘Judge on Trial,’ which explored the profound horrors he witnessed.
However, it was the communist era that most occupied his literary focus, particularly the period following the 1968 Prague Spring. During this brief window of liberation, Klima, alongside other prominent intellectuals, championed the reformist vision of leader Alexander Dubcek, who sought to establish a ‘Socialism with a human face’ in Czechoslovakia. This flicker of hope was tragically extinguished later that year when approximately 750,000 Warsaw Pact troops invaded, crushing the Prague reforms.
While many fellow dissident writers, such as Milan Kundera, Josef Skvorecky, and Pavel Kohout, either fled or were exiled, Klima chose to return to Prague in 1970 after an authorized sabbatical in the United States. There, he became a pivotal figure in the underground literary scene, publishing banned works and even orchestrating their clandestine shipment to Western publishers. His defiance extended to hosting an influential, often wine-infused, secret literary salon that attracted other prominent dissidents, including the future Czech president and playwright, Vaclav Havel.
Jiri Pehe, director of New York University in Prague, lauded Klima as ‘one of the greatest Czech writers,’ stating that his experiences in both Nazi concentration camps and under communist rule made him ‘a walking symbol of what our country endured in this century.’ Pehe emphasized that Klima transcended mere literary status, playing an indispensable role in circulating prohibited literature and actively challenging the communist government.
Forced into non-literary roles due to his dissident activities, Klima took on menial jobs such as a street sweeper and hospital orderly, experiences he later transformed into the short story collection, ‘My Golden Trades.’ His characters were rarely heroic, often portraying individuals who had made various compromises under Czechoslovakia’s half-century of dictatorial rule. These stories initially circulated as clandestine ‘samizdat’ copies among his trusted circle in Prague.
An image from 1967 shows Ivan Klima addressing the Czechoslovak Writers Union in Prague. His bold speech at this assembly, advocating for the abolition of censorship, would soon lead to his expulsion from the Communist Party and a publishing ban that lasted until 1989. This pivotal moment cemented his role as an active member of the Czech literary underground.
Klima’s international standing was further solidified in 1990 by a New York Review of Books cover story penned by his friend, American novelist Philip Roth. Roth, who had visited Klima multiple times in Prague, famously described the author, with his distinctive pageboy haircut, as ‘a much more intellectually evolved Ringo Starr.’
With the collapse of communism in 1989, Klima turned his pen to portray the lives of individuals who, having dutifully served the former regime, found themselves disoriented and lost within the vibrant freedoms of a nascent democracy. Post-1989, his works ‘My Merry Mornings’ and ‘Love and Garbage’ were swiftly published, each selling over 100,000 copies, and his entire oeuvre has since been translated into numerous languages.
Born on September 9, 1931, in Prague, Ivan Klima was the son of secular Jewish parents; his father was an industrial engineer. His childhood was abruptly shattered at the age of seven when Nazi forces occupied Czechoslovakia.
Recalling his youth, Klima once stated, ‘When I had to wear the yellow star, I felt that I was somebody who was hunted, an outlaw.’ He described the shame he felt when German children would shout ‘Jew! Jew!’ at him, adding, ‘From this point of view, I felt better in Terezin than in Prague because there the insults stopped.’
Remarkably, amidst the terror of Terezin, Klima found solace and began to write, using his imagination as a refuge. He, along with his parents, miraculously survived the ordeal.
He later reflected on the indelible impact of such an upbringing: ‘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 concluded with a poignant thought: ‘That life can be snapped like a piece of string — that was my daily lesson as a child.’
These profound experiences consistently infused his narratives. In ‘Miriam,’ a story from ‘My First Loves’ (1988), a young narrator living in a ghetto forms a connection with a girl working in a Nazi-occupied Prague soup kitchen. Their budding friendship is tragically severed once the deportations of Jews to death camps commence.
After graduating with a degree in philosophy from Charles University in Prague in 1956, Klima spent five years working in a publishing house. His debut novel, ‘An Hour of Silence’ (1963), delved into the complexities between idealism and disillusionment. From 1964 to 1967, he served as editor of Literarni Noviny, a prominent publication for liberal Communist intellectuals, before moving to Literarni List.
At the 1967 annual assembly of the Czechoslovak Literary Association, Klima famously defied convention by addressing attendees as ‘respected friends’ instead of the usual ‘comrades.’ In his speech, he passionately called for the end of censorship, highlighting that a guaranteed press freedom existed in Czechoslovakia as far back as 1867, thereby exposing the regressive nature of contemporary Communist law.
Jiri Hendrych, the party secretary for ideological matters, infamously retorted, ‘Now you writers have crapped on yourselves.’ The assembled writers responded with jeers. Klima later reminisced about that moment, saying, ‘It was a beautiful noise. What we demanded then was the most normal thing in the world.’
Within two months, Klima was expelled from the party and faced a publishing ban that would endure until the 1989 Velvet Revolution.
Upon his return to Prague in 1970 from a U.S. sabbatical, Klima became a signatory of Charter 77, a powerful manifesto signed by over 1,000 Czech and Slovak intellectuals protesting state repression, solidifying his role in the Czech literary underground.
Many consider ‘Judge on Trial’ to be his masterpiece. This novel was penned during his two decades of forced literary silence, completed in 1986, and circulated via samizdat before its official publication in 1991.
A 1992 photograph shows Ivan Klima, three years after he stepped back from public life to fully dedicate himself to writing, having recently ended a 20-year period of mandated literary silence.
Fusing elements of a thriller with domestic tragedy, ‘Judge on Trial’ presents a dual biography of Adam Kindl, a rigid, low-ranking judge grappling with the moral quandary of presiding over a double murder trial despite his opposition to capital punishment. Rather than resigning, Kindl delves into his own past through the framework of the case.
The narrative serves as a poignant reminder that the Czech people perpetually confront the profound weight and enduring consequences of their collective memory.
His acclaimed novel ‘Love and Garbage,’ also from this prolific period of silence, features an ostracized writer working as a street cleaner. Through his protagonist, Klima explores fundamental human polarities: ‘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 largely retreated from public life, dedicating the subsequent two decades to his writing. This era produced his two-volume memoir, ‘My Crazy Century,’ where he starkly characterized Communism as ‘a criminal conspiracy against democracy.’ Paul Berman, writing in The New York Times, lauded the memoir for its ‘ferocious’ and ‘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, and together they had two children. A full list of surviving family members was not released.
Despite his work often being imbued with existential angst, Klima once noted it was consistently balanced by an underlying sense of optimism. As he remarked 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, one of the co-authors and a former European correspondent for The Times, passed away in 2019.
