I Am Snowing: The Confessions of a Woman of Prague.

Kohout is a well-known Czech writer who with Vaclav Havel issued the "Manifesto Charter 77" that brought about the Prague Spring and caused Kohout's exile to Vienna in 1979. Since the post-Communist period began, he divides his time between Vienna and Prague. Which city does he prefer?

By the first page, everything already appears questionable: the words veritas vincit ("truth wins") occur ten times, the last with a question mark. The final victory of truth itself has become doubtful. Uncertainty pervades the entire book and the life of Kohout's narrator, Petra Marova, an attractive individual whose long list of lovers includes influential politicians. Their relations to Petra are highly diverse, each a story in itself. Together they convey the impact on people of uncertain times. This is where Kohout is undisputed master; he has lived and suffered through these times. His lively descriptions convey how difficult and uncertain life was after the Prague Spring, the brief period of liberation from the Communist regime.

The book begins in the post-Communist era, when many emigres have returned to Prague, among them Victor Kral, whom Petra calls her eternal loved one. All would be well, were life not so very uncertain. Kral, who begins work as an economics advisor for the government, is suddenly accused of having been an informer of the Communist secret police. If this is true, he would, like all Communist collaborators, lose his job. Petra, shaken by doubt herself, wants to clear his name but is uncertain whom to believe; nobody knows where the truth lies. Even Petra's love for Kral seems to be a fata morgana, a burned-out experience, disconnected from the present. This becomes clear when Kral tells Petra that she is like a snowflake: when someone gets too close to her, she melts. On the final page we find the poem "I am snowing," where the author-narrator tell us: "What of it what's love or hate friend or foe...I am a snowflake and thus I snow."

This book reflects the uncertainty of the Czech people at the time they openly questioned repressive Communist rule.

Anna Otten