My Golden Trades: Stories
by By Klima, Ivan and Wilson, Paul (TRN)
Category: Fiction , Short Stories (single author)

My Golden Trades is one of the last artistic expressions of life under Communism. Among the "golden trades" are the unlikely jobs taken up by writers, artists, and intellectuals who refused to cooperate with the Czech government after the Russian invasion of 1968 - including Klima himself, one of the writers who remained behind. Each story is occasioned by one of the tradesarchaeologist, courier, surveyor - that, contrary to the State's expectations, liberate the narrator's imagination.More important, Klima gives us characters who inspire us, lives that are shaped by events beyond their control. With grace and elan, My Golden Trades captures the surreal atmosphere of Prague between 1983 and 1987, where a dance could be broken up by the secret police, where a traffic offense could lead to surveillance and arrest, where contraband books were the currency of the underworld.