Just Like Heaven

Ivan Kraus, an actor, screenwriter, puppeteer, and above all, a writer of humorous short stories, is immensely popular in our country, even though he lived abroad from 1968 and could only partially return to his homeland after 1989. His humour is kind, charmingly absurd, his irony more gentle than biting, and his exaggerations more philosophical than caricaturing. It deals with the endless troubles and mishaps of a large family, whose members are endowed with such strong individuality that sparks constantly fly between them. And into all of this, the absurdity of political regimes and their henchmen intrudes, against which humour was the only defence. However, with his worldview, the author also touched upon something very fundamental. Between siblings, between children and parents, and between spouses, irresolvable situations arise that are familiar to us all, threatening to escalate into tragedy if we cannot turn them into a joke. "You'll save on a psychiatrist," claims Ivan Kraus. And so, it can be said without exaggeration that the Czech nation is divided into those who have read Ivan Kraus and those who are yet to read him.