Poetic Obituaries: [Josef] Skvorecky and his author wife

Zdena Salivarova set up the Sixty-Eight Publishers in Toronto after leaving Czechoslovakia in the wake of the 1968 Soviet invasion that crushed hopes of the “Prague Spring” reforms. He published 227 titles in total.

Skvorecky’s death comes after fellow leading lights of the Czech artistic anti-communist generation also died in the past year. They include Havel, who died in December, as well as authors Ivan Martin Jirous, Arnost Lustig and Jiri Grusa.

Books published by Skvorecky were often smuggled back into Czechoslovakia, opening cracks in the heavy censorship that strangled free expression in the 1970s and 1980s.

from The National Post: Josef Skvorecky dies at the age of 87

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