My Crazy Century

By Ivan Klima

Spanning six decades that included war, totalitarianism, censorship, and the fight for democracy, My Crazy Century reflects on Ivan Klíma's remarkable life while also looking at this critical period of twentieth-century history. From World War Two to the oppressive grip of Communism, from the brief hope of freedom during the Prague Spring of 1968 to the eventual collapse of the regime in 1989's Velvet Revolution, Klíma's revelatory account contemplates the ways in which this crazy century led mankind astray and impacted the lives of not only Klíma's generation but today's generations still grappling with totalitarian societies.

Including an appendix of insightful essays that compliment each chapter - on topics ranging from social history and political thinking to love and liberty - My Crazy Century provides a profoundly rich and moving personal and national history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Release date: Jan 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781611859751

Reviews for My Crazy Century

[stephengoldenberg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's a long time since I read it, but I thought Ivan Klima's novel 'Love and Garbage' was excellent so i was looking forward to this autobiography. He has certainly lived through astonishing and depressing times. However, for me he rather underplays these events in his writing being too laid back at times. This works in the opening chapters where he describes his boyhood in the Terezin concentration camp with his family, partly because they all survived but also because he was a small boy and treated much of it as a kind of horrible adventure, his main concern being that his playmates were constantly disappearing.
The same anti-climactic approach is present at the end of the book where he gives his account of the 'velvet revolution' which happens almost subliminally in the last few pages.
However, the best parts of the book do give a vivid account of the accumulative petty repressions under the communist regime, best described in his verbatim reporting of the many surreal interrogations he was forced to undergo - like something out of Kafka.