Synopses & Reviews
This autobiography in stories takes us through a most remarkable life, from the innocence of prewar Prague through the horrors of the Nazi occupation and World War II. In the title story, narrated by Skvoreckys alter-ego Danny Smiricky, seven-year-old Danny falls in love for the first time; at sixteen he hides in a railway station and watches as his Jewish teacher is herded onto a train and taken away; and in 1968, as Russian tanks rolled into Prague, vSkvoreck´y flees Czechoslovakia, taking Danny with him. In the collections final stories, Danny begins his tenure as Professor Smiricky at a Canadian university and attempts to come to terms with the politically innocent and self-centered youth that flock to his courses.
Review
“Pick up Josef Skvoreckys
When Eve Was Naked and, I promise, you will be enriched, enlightened, entertained and more...I cant say enough about the delights of this volume. Its wise, its witty, its poignant, its wry.” —
The Washington Post“The stories read to some extent like a diary, capturing an emotional landscape in lucid detail...A delight only Skvorecky could write.” —The New York Times Book Review
“The twenty-four stories in this collection are bubbles in time, verbal dioramas depicting a benign quality (innocence, comfort or just amiable confusion) destined for extinction. Refreshingly, Skvorecky...handles the heaviness of his material with a feather touch.” —San Francisco Chronicle
About the Author
Josef Skvorecky is the author of The Bass Saxophone and The Engineer of Human Souls, among other works. He is the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and Canada’s Governor General’s Award. He lives in Toronto, Ontario, and Venice, Florida.