Author and playwright Ivan Klima was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1931. In 1968, he acted as an editor for the journal of the Czech Writer's Union. Following that, he was briefly a professor at the University of Michigan before returning to his homeland in 1970. His works, which include The Spirit of Prague, a collection of essays, were banned in Czechoslovakia until 1989. They address issues such as totalitarianism and intellectual freedom, which Klima also lectures on.
Gerald Turner has been translating modern Czech and Slovak writing forover thirty years. Prior to 1990 he translated, under the pseudonym ofA. G. Brain, many banned authors, including V�clav Havel, Karel Pecka,and Ludv�k Vacul�k. His translations include Europeana by Patrik Ouredn�k, for which he received the US PEN Translation Award in 2004.