Contemporary Czech novelist and playwright Ivan Klíma has transformed his lifelong admiration for the work of the great Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek into an extended personal essay on Capek's life and work. Written with letters and other material not available to earlier biographers and critics, Klíma reflects on the effects of the author’s personal relationships and scrutinizes his artistic and philosophical influences. This is not merely a biography or a critical work covering all of Capek's writings; it is a wide-ranging study of the life and work of a great artist as examined from the perspective of another eminent writer who grew up in Capek's shadow.