Love Letter in Cuneiform

Set across the second half of the twentieth century, the novel is a love story, a historical novel and a page-turner at once. A man imprisoned for political reasons in the 1950s comes home a stranger to the people he loves, and the book shows, without grand historical tableaux or slogans, how a regime let people settle private scores through persecution and reached into the most private corners of family life. Its chronology is intricate, broken by flashbacks, side stories that work as moral parables and chapters in strikingly different styles. Guilt and punishment, the difficulty of forgiving and small acts of quiet kindness are its themes, not without humour.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

343 pages in the original

Genres

Love, Politics, Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

Czechia, 1950s–1990s

First published

2008 by Torst

Author's age

42 when first published

ISBN

9788072153497 (original)

9780300186970 (Yale University Press, United States)