SOURCE: Schubert, Peter Z. Review of Love and Garbage, by Ivan Klíma. World Literature Today 65, no. 2 (spring 1991): 325.

In the following review, Schubert discusses the publishing history of Love and Garbage and argues that the book's enthusiastic critical reception was well deserved.

In countries other than Czecho-Slovakia, writers who have not achieved popularity with the reading public rely on other jobs to make a living. In Czecho-Slovakia, however, the most popular authors work in other occupations. The president, ministers, and ambassadors, for instance, can hardly find time to continue with their literary careers, which they pursued for decades while working at various forms of manual labor forced upon them by the former regime. Only time will show whether we will ever read about their experiences in the highest offices, but their work as stokers, street sweepers, or brewery laborers has become an inseparable part of Czech and Slovak...