The Czech novelist Ladislav Fuks was a homosexual who developed a profound interest in Jewish mysticism and the esoteric arts; he led the life of a victim and a potential victim, always subject to blackmail by the authorities. Fuks was from the start, as Milos Pohorsky has said, "trochu pozdivny cizinec" (a slightly eccentric outsider) in Czech literature. Unlike other Czech fiction writers who wrote about the mass murder of Jews--for example, Milan Jaris, Norbert Fryd, Arnost Lustig, or Josef Skvorecky--Fuks wrote for an intellectual readership, though many of his novels did appeal to a broader audience. Fuks gave a distinctive, grotesque portrayal of autocracy and racism and colored his psychological assessments of evil, fear, and despair with irony, sometimes even with something approaching slapstick.

Fuks was born on 24 September 1923 to Vaclav Fuks, a policeman, and Marie Frycková Fuksová in Prague. After graduating from high school...