Jáchym Topol was famous in his youth as an underground poet and songwriter. He became even more famous for writing the book that has most successfully and imaginatively captured the dislocation brought about by the fall of communism: "City Sister Silver."

Winner of the Egon Hostovský Prize as the best Czech book of the year, "City Sister Silver" is also the only novel of the 1990s included on a list of the hundred greatest Czech prose works (from a survey of Czech writers and critics done by the newspaper Týden ("Week"); it came in #26).

Always surprising and fast-paced, "City Sister Silver" is at once satirical and romantic, wild and controlled. The novel is full of storytelling, myths, dreams and nightmares, shifting through a variety of genres. It is a novel for readers who want an unforgettable reading experience.

What makes "City Sister Silver" so special is its language, its energy, and its ability to creatively capture the feelings that accompanied the opening up of Central and Eastern Europe in the 90s. It is a truly breathtaking book. As one Czech critic wrote, "City Sister Silver tells me more about the epoch than many of the books that try so hard to articulate and explain the burning ideas of the day."

"'City Sister Silver' is a first novel the way 'The Tin Drum' and 'Midnight's Children' were first novels —
a prodigal astonishment; an emancipation proclamation."
—John Leonard, Newsday

"Topol's book is a fervent effort by a post-Cold War writer to break
away from the familiar dissident mode of his seniors and to stake out
the fresh troubles that freedom —and, more to the point, a raw market
economy have spawned since the Velvet Revolution."
—Patricia Hampl, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Readers embarking on 'City Sister Silver' are in for an exhilarating,
exasperating journey ... kaleidoscopic and ethereal, full of motion
for its own sake, with many memorable stops along the route."
—Neil Bermel, New York Times Book Review

"Topol's phantasmagoric odyssey through a racketeering, polyglot,
cultural stew of post-Soviet Bohemia has been acclaimed as the definitive novel
of a Czech new wave. Catbird Press does great service to bring it to anglophone readers."
—Choice