★ A classic work by Lenka Reinerová, “the last representative writer of German-language literature in Prague”! She is regarded as the final legendary figure of Prague’s German-speaking literary scene, following Kafka, Max Brod, and others. This book is not merely a memoir; it also fills a crucial, long-overlooked chapter in 20th-century literary history. While we are well acquainted with the male protagonists of Prague’s café culture, Reinerová offers a vital perspective on the political awakening of young women during the rise of fascism.
★ A condensed “chronicle of the times,” capturing the bloodshed and tears of 20th-century warfare! Taking a premiere as its starting point, the novel interweaves the author’s life under confinement in French exile, her entanglements with Jean-Paul Sartre, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Prague Spring, and other momentous historical upheavals into the fabric of her personal destiny. In her later years, she looks back with profound insight on her own fate and the tumultuous changes of her era, lending the book exceptional value as a historical testimony. It also serves as a micro‑historical record of totalitarianism, exile, and human resilience, enabling readers to grasp the fragmentation and rebirth of the 20th century through its dramatic tension.
★ A testament to the literary influence of the 2026 Frankfurt Book Fair’s Guest of Honor! As the Czech Republic takes center stage at the Frankfurt Book Fair, we have a unique opportunity to rediscover a masterpiece of European memory literature: originally published in 1989, this work was tragically overshadowed by the fall of the Berlin Wall and never received the scholarly attention it deserved. It is not only a literary classic but also an invaluable lens for understanding Eastern European society on the eve of its transformation.
★ Set against the backdrop of a Sartrean premiere in 1960s Prague, Lenka Reinerová’s narrative weaves together multiple layers of time: from the theatrical stages of her youth, through the encroaching shadow of war, to imprisonment in French exile, and finally to Mexico. It is a poignant tale of love, political awakening, and the indomitable strength of the human spirit. At the premiere, Lenka Reinerová meets the man fated to become her lover—though he is already married. Just as the curtain falls, the world is once again shaken by a cataclysmic event: John F. Kennedy is assassinated in the United States.
★ The book also includes a remarkable afterword penned by Lenka Reinerová’s daughter, Anna Fodorová.
★ Partial English translation available.

With her distinctive feminine voice, she speaks truth to life itself and resolutely walks her own path.

“Young people find joy in life, even when it is sometimes quite complicated. Complicated, yet exhilarating, because one can always, in some way, take part in—or influence—the various upheavals of the world.”
— Lenka Reinerová

Writing is an act of survival, a guarantee of existence and self-affirmation.
For many artists, Prague in the 1930s was their first stop in exile. For Lenka Reinerová, however, it was the cradle of her youth—a city alive with theaters and demonstrations, where the shadow of war drove young people’s passions to their peak. At sixteen, she worked as a typist, then began attending rallies and persuaded Erich Kästner to allow her theater group to stage his play “Little Peter and Anton,” because she felt the New German Theater’s production was too bland. She also candidly recounts the most important love affair of her life: with the actor Wolfgang Langhoff, who was already married when they met. The story traces her imprisonment during her French exile, culminating decades later in the premiere night she shared with Jean-Paul Sartre. Yet just before the intermission, the world once again underwent a dramatic shift: President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in the United States.
A book for readers who have enjoyed Sebastian Haffner’s “Defying Hitler” and Volker Weidermann’s “Martha Kaéloko and Her Journey Through Life.”
Like her contemporary Tove Ditlevsen, Lenka Reinerová has left behind a classic autobiographical work rooted in personal experience. It is a profoundly moving account of survival. The author’s life—starting as a young girl in downtown Prague, becoming an anti-fascist journalist, fleeing Nazi-occupied France, going into exile in Mexico, and finally returning to a Czechoslovakia transformed by the Cold War—vividly and authentically portrays the tragedy and resilience of human experience in the twentieth century.

Lenka Reinerová
Lenka Reinerová was the last major German-speaking Jewish writer and journalist in Czechia, hailed as “the final representative of Prague’s German-language literature” and regarded as the one who brought to a close the tradition of German-Jewish writing in Prague, following Kafka, Max Brod, and Egon Erwin Kisch. She was born in Prague in 1916 and died there in 2008.
Born in 1916 in Prague to a Czech–Jewish merchant family—her father was a hardware dealer in Prague, and her mother was of German Bohemian origin—Lenka Reinerová grew up in an environment rich in Jewish culture. From 1936 onward, she worked as a journalist for the Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung (“Workers’ Illustrated Newspaper”). In 1938, she fled to France, where she became involved with Surrealist circles and, like many other émigrés, was interned. Later, she escaped via Morocco to Mexico. After the war, together with her husband, the writer and physician Theodor Baruk, she returned to Europe, lived for several years in Belgrade, and resettled in Prague in 1948. In the early 1950s, she fell victim to Stalinist purges: she spent fifteen months in pre-trial detention and was subsequently deported with her family to the provinces, only being rehabilitated in 1964. Following the end of the Prague Spring, she was banned from writing, expelled from the Communist Party, and lost her job at a publishing house.
In 1999, she received the Schiller Ring Award from the German Schiller Foundation. In 2002, she was awarded the Honorary Citizen Medal of Prague.
Her final published collections of short stories include: A Dream Café of a Prague Woman (1996), The Scent of Almonds (1998), Home in Prague—Sometimes Elsewhere Too (2000), and All the Colors of the Sun and Night (2003).

Biographical Highlights:
• Born in 1916 in Prague’s Karlín district, into an assimilated Jewish family; fluent in both German and Czech.
• Early Years: Joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1934; from 1935 served as an editor for the anti-fascist publication Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung.
• World War II Exile: Fled to France in 1939 to escape Nazi persecution, spending time in the Rieucros women’s internment camp; in 1941, via Marseille and Casablanca, she reached Mexico, where she married the local writer Theodor Baruk.
• Postwar Return: Moved to Belgrade in 1945, returning to Prague in 1948; between 1952 and 1953, she was arrested and imprisoned for fifteen months during the Stalinist purges known as the Slánský Trial, and was finally rehabilitated in 1964.