SOURCE: Angier, Carole. “Jobs' Worth.” New Statesman and Society 5, no. 222 (2 October 1992): 42.

In the following review, Angier lauds Klíma's use of humour, evocation of mystery, and examination of society in My Golden Trades, commenting on the influence of Franz Kafka on Klíma's writing.

Over every Czech writer hangs the shade of Kafka: his voice and his greatness. In My Golden Trades, Ivan Klíma invokes Kafka for the first time (I think) in his writing. Like everything else in this collection, that is perfectly judged. For here Klíma joins Kafka, at least for me. He turns a similar grave and penetrating gaze on to a paranoid society; he wields a similar deadpan humour, evokes a similar mystery, and conducts a similar battle against despair.

Indeed, for me, Klíma is the greater, or anyway the richer. For Kafka's music is unvarying: reality and symbol, inner and...