Overview

• His son, Michal Klima, confirmed the death to the Czech News Agency CTK, according to dpa reporting.
• Born on September 14, 1931, as Ivan Kauders, he spent three childhood years imprisoned with his family in the Theresienstadt ghetto.
• After rising among Czechoslovakia’s leading authors, he denounced communist abuses in a 1967 speech that led to his expulsion from the party and a move to the United States after the Prague Spring was crushed.
• He returned to Prague about three years later but faced a publication ban at home until 1989, earning a living writing animated films and working as a surveyor.
• He later received the 2002 Franz Kafka Prize and characterized his relationship to Germany as relaxed, noting that a language cannot be blamed for crimes committed by its speakers.