Bøger af Heda Margolius Kovaly

Heda Margolius Kovly (1919-2010) was a renowned Czech writer and translator born to Jewish parents. Her bestselling memoir, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague, 1941-1968 has been translated into more than a dozen languages. Her crime novel Innocence; or, Murder on Steep Streetbased on her own experiences living under Stalinist oppressionwas named an NPR Best Book in 2015.In the tradition of Studs Terkel, Hitler, Stalin and I is based on interviews between Kovly and award-winning filmmaker Helena Tretkov. In it, Kovly recounts her family history in Czechoslovakia, starving in the deprivations of Lodz Ghetto, how she miraculously left Auschwitz, fled from a death march, failed to find sanctuary amongst former friends in Prague as a concentration camp escapee, and participated in the liberation of Prague. Later under Communist rule, she suffered extreme social isolation as a pariah after her first husband Rudolf Margolius was unjustly accused in the infamous Slnsk Trial and executed for treason. Remarkably, Kovly, exiled in the United States after the Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, only had love for her country and continued to believe in its people. She returned to Prague in 1996.Heda had an enormous talent for expressing herself. She spoke with precision and was descriptive and witty in places. I admired her attitude and composure, even after she had such extremely difficult experiences. Nazism and Communism afflicted Heda's life directly with maximum intensity. Nevertheless, she remained an optimist.Helena Tretkov has made over fifty documentary films. Hitler, Stalin and I has garnered several awards in the Czech Republic and Japan.PRAISE FOR KOVALY'S INNOCENCEA luminous testament from a dark time, Innocence is at once a clever homage to Raymond Chandler, and a portrait of a city - Prague - caught and held fast in a state of Kafkaesque paranoia. Only a great survivor could have written such a book. - John BanvilleInnocence is an extraordinary novel ... in 1985, Kovly produced a remarkable work of art with the intrigue of a spy puzzle, the irony of a political fable, the shrewdness of a novel of manners, and the toughness of a hard-boiled murder mystery ... Just as few will anticipate the many surprises and artful turns of Innocence, a book sure to dazzle and please a great many readers. - Tom Nolan, The Best New Mysteries, The Wall Street JournalKovly's skills as a mystery writer shines, as she uses suspense, hints, and suggestions to literally play with the reader's mind ... Innocence is an excellent novel for readers who are up for a challenging, intelligent, and complex story - one that paints a masterful picture of a bleak, Kafkaesque, and highly intriguing time, place, and cast of characters. - The New York Journal of BooksAlthough not out of love for Hegel, Heda Margolius Kovly makes a very Hegelian point: actions, as Hegel tells us in the section on Antigone in Phenomenology of Spirit - even seemingly small, meaningless actions - always reach beyond their intent; and the impossibility of foreseeing how the consequences will ripple outwards does not absolve us of guilt. As for innocence, the woman who went to hell twice wants her readers to know that there is no such thing. - The Times Literary Supplement

"Tre kræfter har formet mit livs landskab. To af dem knuste den halve verden. Den tredje var meget lille og svag, ja, faktisk usynlig. Det var en sky lille fugl i min brystkasse, en tomme eller to over min mave. På de mest uventede tidspunkter kunne fuglen vågne op, løfte sit hoved og baske henrykt med vingerne. Så løftede jeg også hovedet, for i det korte øjeblik vidste jeg med sikkerhed, at kærlighed og håb har uendeligt større magt end had og raseri, og at der et eller andet sted på den anden side af min horisont eksisterede et uforgængeligt liv, der altid ville sejre.Den første kraft var Adolf Hitler, den anden Josef Vissarionovitj Stalin. De gjorde mit liv til et mikrokosmos, hvor historien om et lille land i Europas hjerte udspillede sig. Den lille fugl, den tredje kraft, holdt mig i live, så jeg kunne fortælle denne historie.""En sjælden gang imellem læser man en bog, der sætter egne og tidens problemer i perspektiv og tvinger os til at konfrontere de mørke sider af menneskets natur. Mrs. Koválys erindringer er ikke blot en personlig be- retning om den umenneskelighed, hun mødte. Ved at fortælle sin historie – ligefremt og uden selvmedlidenhed – kaster hun lys over dybe sandheder om den menneskelige adfærd ... Langsomt og med tiltagende styrke bliver det igennem bogen tydeligt, hvordan den totalitære stat næres af menneskelig blindhed og svaghed." – THE NEW YORK TIMESHEDA MARGOLIUS KOVÁLY (1919- 2010) voksede op i Prag som datter af velstående jøder. Familien blev i 1941 interneret i den jødiske ghetto i Lodz og derfra sendt til Auschwitz, hvor hendes forældre omkom. Mirakuløst flygtede hun tilbage til Prag fra en dødsmarch mod Bergen-Belsen få måneder før Anden Verdenskrigs afslutning.rnrnEfter krigen opnåede hendes mand, Rudolf Margolius, en politisk toppost i det nye, kommunistiske styre, men blev i 1952 fængslet og senere henrettet som en af 11 i den skueproces, der senere blev kendt som Slansky-processen.rnrnHeda Margolius Kovály ernærede sig derefter som oversætter, særligt af moderne amerikansk litteratur, inden hun i 1968 flygtede ud af Tjekkoslovakiet, først til Storbritannien og senere til USA, hvor hun levede frem til sin død.