Charles Heller interview on You Tube, Part 1

Happy to be part of oral history

The National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library (http://www.ncsml.org/), located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is the "center of gravity" of immigrants, and their descendants, from the former Czechoslovakia. The NCSML runs interesting programs throughout the year, has a great online gift shop, and its library is the depository of many valuable books and documents. Despite the fact that the library was destroyed a couple of years ago in Iowa's disastrous flood, the treasures were saved and the building has now been rebuilt.

The Museum's current major project consists of collecting oral histories of Czech and Slovak immigrants. I was lucky enough to be selected to participate, and I was interviewed during the summer. The result of the interview was posted just last week on the Museum's web site. You can access it directly on:

http://www.ncsml.org/Oral-History/Washington-DC/20101108/69/Heller-Charles.aspx

Alternately, you can go on YouTube, enter "Charles Heller," and view several of the clips from the interview. Thanks for your interest -- and welcome to my blog!

The Invisible Bridge

I began reading a novel called The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010) as part of my research on World War II, as I edit my memoir of life as a "hidden Child" during Nazi occupation. Only a few pages in, I was totally absorbed in this wonderful love story. Judging from her photo, Julie Orringer is a young woman. Thus, I find it amazing that she has been able to describe so vividly and accurately the horrors wrought by the Germans and their collaborators. Reading between the lines of the Acknowledgement leads me to think that the book may be based on the story of the author's family. Is this true? I don't know. I do know that, while the book is long -- some 600 pages -- and it took me two weeks to read it, I became totally absorbed in it. For the entire period, I was living with Andras, Klara, and the other characters. Now that I've completed the book, I feel that something is missing from my day. I'll have to wait for the movie.

Much harder than I had thought...

It has been more than a month since my last blog. The reason? I underestimated the amount of work that would be required to get my book, Out of Prague: A Memoir of Survival, Denial, and Triumph, translated into Czech. The publisher, Mlada Fronta, asked me to make a few changes so that the book would be more suitable for the Czech reader. My original estimate was that it would take me perhaps three weeks to make these changes, before sending them to my translator in Prague.

The process has turned out to be considerably more difficult and time-consuming. First, I modify each chapter and perform several edits. Then, I e-mail it to Prague. Perhpas a week later, I receive the translated chapter, at which time I edit this Czech version. The latter is the tough part. It is very unusual for an author to know the foreign language into which his book is being translated. Czech is my native language. I know it quite well -- not well enough to do my own translation, but well enough to understand every word. Therein lies the problem. Occasionally, there are nuances and subtle meanings which get lost in translation, and my Czech collaborator and I must work through these. My knowledge of Czech turns out to be both a blessing and a curse.

The good news is that we're making progress. So far, we've completed the Preface and seven of 18 chapters. We're on schedule to meet our target completion date. As I mentioned in a previous blog, the Czech book will launch the first week of May 2011, at the Prague Book Fair, with a book tour to follow.

In the meantime, the search for a U.S. publisher for the English version goes on...

An unforgettable book

Sue and I returned last night from our annual reunion of Oklahoma State University friends. On alternate years, we meet at the "cabin" of my college roommate, Don Gafford, and his wife, Sondra. Their home is located in spectacular country -- the High Sierras -- in the least populated county in the state of California. Sierra County has a population of only 3,300 people, but a multitude of snow-capped mountains, crystal-clear lakes, and green forests.

While relaxing in a hammock at the edge of Lusk Meadow, I had the pleasure of reading one of the finest Holocaust-era novels in print. Because of my own to-be-published memoir on the subject, I try to read any and all books on this subject -- fiction and nonfiction. Some are good, some are fair, others are outstanding.

Taking its place in the latter group is Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. It is a fictional account of a young girl's separation from her parents, following a real event: the round-up of thousands of French Jews and their children -- not by Germans, but by French police. Ms. de Rosnay teaches us about this shameful and little-known crime by skillfully interweaving two story lines -- those of Sarah, the Jewish girl who holds a terrible secret and Julia, an American journalist, who uncovers the secret. The story is powerful and compelling. At the same time, it is so terrifying that -- on many occasions -- I wanted to stop reading. But, I couldn't.

I am grateful to St. Martin's Press, and its Griffin imprint, for publishing one of the finest books in this genre. Go out and buy this book. It will make you cry, but you will never forget it.

A book deal!

After parting company with my literary agent several weeks ago, I implemented a new strategy for getting my book -- Out of Prague: A Memoir of Survival, Denial, and Triumph -- published. Following the example of several other first-time American authors of books dealing with the Second World War and/or the Holocaust, I decided to try to get my book published in Europe first. The writers whose paths I followed found European publishers, had their books translated into the respective native languages, and saw their books have successful sales runs. Book deals made in Europe caught the interest of American publishers, who -- based on this new credibility -- signed the authors to contracts for the U.S. market.

For me, the natural target was my native country -- the Czech Republic. I queried one of the largest publishers in the nation, Mlada Fronta -- a firm which owns one of the country's major newspapers, 45 magazines, and publishes more than 200 book titles each year. Within a week, I received an expression of interest and a request for the full manuscript. I sent it immediately and, one week later, we were discussing specifics. One month ago, we met in Prague and came to an agreement.

Currently, I am making a few modification to make the book more suitable to Czech readership. As I finish editing each chapter, I send it to Prague for translation. We will launch the book (with the same subtitle as the English version, but with a different title -- most probably, Long Way Home) at the Prague Book Fair, in early May 2011. A book tour in the Czech Republic will follow. More good news: one of the finest, and most beloved, contemporary Czech writers -- Arnost Lustig -- has agreed to write the Foreword of the book. I am honored and extremely pleased.

Naturally, I am excited and anxious to see my memoir on the bookshelves of my native country. At the same time, I hope to find an American publisher who will bring Out of Prague to American readers.

I can't resist!

Everyone else in America is writing about the LeBron James debacle, and I can't resist chiming in. Up front, I must say that I love basketball too much to be able to watch the game played by today's National Basketball Association. There was a time -- that of Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, and all the way up to that of Larry Bird -- when professional basketball in the US was as exciting, and as well played, as the game's college version. All that changed with a guy named Michael Jordan. Enormously talented, he was permitted to change the rules. He palmed the ball, he double-dribbled, he drove through the lane while taking three steps without dribbling, and his defense consisted of waving an arm at his man as the latter drove by. The game became a sham -- and it continues so.

The poor quality of the NBA game is surpassed only by that of the character of some of its players. Coddled and managed from their early teens, these guys have been convinced by their adoring hangers-on and the cooperating sports press that the world revolves around them. There is no better example than the man-child who appointed himself "The King" -- LeBron James. This selfish oaf, with full cooperation from newspapers, magazines, and ESPN, deserted the city of Cleveland accompanied by fanfare which displaced news of deaths in Afganistan, oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, and the excitement of the World Cup.

Why does this disturb me so? It's the fact that people actually care about a jerk like LeBron James -- a guy who couldn't carry Bill Russell's jockstrap.