Ivan Klíma (born Ivan Kauders, 9 September 1931 – 4 October 2025) was a Czech novelist and playwright. He received the Magnesia Litera award and the Franz Kafka Prize, among other honours.

Early life and career

Klíma was born Ivan Kauders in Prague on 9 September 1931. His early childhood in Prague was happy and uneventful, but this all changed with the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, after the Munich Agreement.

In November 1941, first his father Vilém Klíma and then, in December, he and his mother and brother were ordered to leave for the concentration camp at Theriesenstadt (Terezín), where he was to remain until its liberation by the Red Army in May 1945. He and both his parents survived incarceration, even though Terezín, a holding camp for Jews from central and southern Europe, was regularly cleared of its overcrowded population by transports to "the East," that is, to death camps such as Auschwitz. The family adopted the less German-sounding surname of Klíma after the war. He wrote that "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. That life can be snapped like a piece of string - that was my daily lesson as a child." Eventually, his childhood hopes for the triumph of good over evil became an adult awareness that it was often "not the forces of good and evil that do battle with each other, but merely two different evils, in competition for the control of the world".

Writing

Klíma was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize in 2002. His two-volume memoir Moje šílené století (My Crazy Century) won the Magnesia Litera, a Czech literary prize, in the non-fiction category in 2010. My Crazy Century was published in English in 2013 by Grove Press.

Bibliography

  • Bezvadný den (1960; English: A Wonderful Day)
  • Hodina ticha (1963; English: A Peaceful Hour)
  • Loď, jménem Naděje (1969)
  • A Ship Named Hope: Two Novels (1970)
  • Milostné léto (1972; English: A Summer Affair (1987))
  • Ma veselá jitra (1979; English: My Merry Mornings: Stories from Prague (1985))
  • Moje první lásky (1985; English: My First Loves (1986))
  • Láska a smetí (1986; English: Love and Garbage (1990))
  • Soudce z milosti (1986; English: Judge on Trial (1991))
  • Už se blíží meče: Eseje, Fejetony, Rozhovory (1990)
  • Ministr a anděl (1990)
  • Rozhovor v Praze (1990)
  • Moje zlatá řemesla (1990; English: My Golden Trades)
  • Ostrov mrtvých králů (1992)
  • Čekání na tmu, čekání na světlo (1993; English: Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light)
  • Milostné rozhovory (1995)
  • Jak daleko je slunce (1995)
  • Poslední stupeň důvěrnosti (1996; English: Ultimate Intimacy)
  • O chlapci, který se nestal číslem (1998)
  • Fictions and Histories (1998)
  • Lovers for a Day: New and Collected Stories on Love (1999)
  • Ani svatí, ani andělé (1999; English: No Saints or Angels)
  • Velký věk chce mít též velké mordy: život a dílo Karla Čapka (2001; English: A Great Age Needs Great Murders: Life and Works of Karel Čapek)
  • Karel Čapek: Life and Work (English translation of above; 2002)
  • Premiér a anděl (2003)
  • Moje nebezpečné výlety (2004; English: My Golden Trips)

References

  • Spisovatel Ivan Klíma převzal Cenu Karla Čapka, tomu i poděkoval (Lidové noviny)
  • "Optimism Outlasted a Lifetime of Horrors - Ivan Klima's 'My Crazy Century' Spans Decades of Czech Life", The New York Times, 17 November 2013,
  • Maya Jaggi: " Building bridges", The Guardian, 1 May 2004,
  • "Ivan Klíma: a sceptic in the era of entertainment culture", Czech Radio, 8. 11. 2009,