Talkin' Moscow Blues

Josef Skvorecky`s novels have established him as a major author around the world, but his less well known essays include some of his most stimulating writing. Talkin` Moscow Blues is the first-ever collection of Skvorecky`s essays, reviews, and interviews. Here are deeply personal stories about the friends and events that have shaped his beliefs and his writing; thoughtful examinations of the nature of art, politics, and freedom; reviews of writers such as Faulkner and Kafka, and filmmakers Jiri Menzel and Francis Coppola. And sprinkled throughout are Skvorecky`s lively commentaries on the foibles of both East and West. Skvorecky has lived under the spectrum of political regimes - from the rightist oppression of the Nazis to the leftist oppression of the Soviets - and he has resisted the influence of both sides. As an amateur musician in Czechoslovakia he slipped verboten lyrics past the Nazi censor and played "degenerate" jazz with a lookout at the door; as a lifelong film devotee and friend of top filmmakers he saw scripts written and rewritten to match the ebb and flow of party politics; as a writer he had his first major work, The Cowards, banned and confiscated by the authorities. As a Czech he is exiled for life, but as a Canadian he has found the freedom to express his thoughts and opinions, both in fiction and in non-fiction. (1988)