Generally faithful to the Czech original, this text does more justice to Kovaly's own authorial voice. Those facts speak more plainly in this edition, a new printing of a 1986 translation. Heda Kovaly's chapters are the burning facts. His review all but ignored the treatise, commenting that " chapters are rational, sensible and intellectually admirable without touching the heart. Alfred Kazin, reviewing the English-language edition for the New York Times Book Review in 1973, noted the imbalance in the volume. In an unsuccessful attempt to make these two texts more parallel, Kovaly's work was given the same chapter headings and subheadings as Kohak's: an artificial and unwieldy division of Kovaly's tense, sparely told story. Initially, Kovaly's book served only as an extended prologue to a philosophical treatise on the events of 1968 by emigre philosopher Erazim Kohak. Kovaly's moving story was first published twenty years ago, in the shadow of the Prague Spring. The text's very faults might provide an opportunity for lively classroom discussion, especially if paired with other recollections of Stalinism that address topics Kovaly omits or oversimplifies. Heda Kovaly's story and engaging narrative personality bring the region's history to life, despite the book's limited historical analysis. This book is at once an emotionally touching memoir, a problematic historical document, and an immensely useful teaching text for undergraduates. Reviewed by Andrea Orzoff (Stanford University) Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968. It is impossible to read her book without the deepest admiration for her quiet, fierce documentation of the ordeal of the Czech people in our time.Heda Margolius Kovaly.
Kovály's reflections on her personal experiences reveal a high degree of insight into politics, individual and institutional behavior, and the formation of attitudes."- Christian Science Monitor " should never have had to be written but since it had, we are lucky that it was done so well."-Clive James, Cultural Amnesia "Kovály's attention to the world’s beauty, even while in hell, is so brazen as to take my breath away."-E.J. In telling her story-simply, without self-pity- illuminates some general truths of human behavior."-Anthony Lewis, New York Times "Once in a rare while we read a book that puts the urgencies of our times and ourselves in perspective. One of the outstanding autobiographies of the century."- San Francisco Chronicle-Examiner "A story of the human spirit at its most indomitable. "A tragic story told with aplomb, humor and tenderness."- Publishers Weekly
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