Summer in Prague by Zdena Salivarova

The 1950s in Czechoslovakia was a time of terrifying communist terror, which made interpersonal relations uncertain. It was often not at all clear who could and could not be trusted. This morbid atmosphere was captured in a unique way by Zdena Salivarova in her novel Honzlova. She started writing it in Prague, and finished it in Toronto after her emigration (the first edition was published in 1972). The short time period of one summer concentrates a ridiculously tragic story, spiced with bizarre memories and crude language. The book is authentic, because the author does not invent reality, but transforms personal experiences, describes the given historical epoch suggestively and vividly. It is literature that belongs in the library of everyone who wants to know our history and touch the mentality of a broken time.