Tightrope Passage: Along the Refugee Route to Canada - Tapa dura

Tightrope Passage Along the Refugee Route to Canada

Hard Cover. Condición: Fine. Estado de la sobrecubierta: Fine. First Edition 1st Printing. BOOK: Spine Bumped; Light Shelf Rub to Boards; Edges Lightly Soiled; Light Moisture Damage to Front Board; Slight Yellowing Due to Age. DUST JACKET: Lightly Creased; In Archival Quality Jacket Cover. JACKET PHOTO BY: Ivo Moravec. JACKET DESIGN BY: Brian Bean. CONTENTS: 1 On the Train 2 With Theo 3 The Decision 4 In the Corridor 5 Mood Swings 6 Hotel Zoch 7 A Good Job, Too 8 A Case of the Jitters 9 The Interview 10 The Stranger 11 The Refugee Theatre 12 The End of the Tightrope; Acknowledgements. SYNOPSIS: In July 1983, Ivo Moravec, his wife, Jana, and young son, also named Ivo, defected from communist Czechoslovakia. They left everything behind--everything except their wits, their good humour, and their passion for freedom. Tightrope Passage is Moravec's eloquent and compelling memoir of the months they spent as refugees in Austria, before they left for Canada to begin a new life. The book jacket shows the rundown hotel--brimming over with refugees--that the Moravecs called home during their time in Vienna. As dramatic and as vividly drawn as a novel, Tightrope Passage is filled with keen intelligence, unforgettable characters, and a buoyant sense of fun. As well as the Moravecs' own story, it tells the adventures of the other refugees they met in Vienna--the people who had risked their lives in daredevil escapes from war and oppression. By turns suspenseful, heartbreaking, and hilarious, Tightrope Passage brings home the ordeals and the emotional and moral dilemmas that all refugees face. It is a tale that will make Canadians feel proud, because Canada, the promised land that is passionately sought, means so much to the Moravecs, and because the Canadian officialdom they encounter is so decent. It is also a pioneering story of how an enterprising family can make it on very little. From reading how the Moravecs cope with practical details, such as how to bathe without a bathtub or shower (their solution is ingenious), and from the description of the psychological and emotional tumult of these months in Austria, readers can only come away with a greater appreciation of what many refugees struggle through before they take their first steps on Canadian soil. An industrial economist by training, Ivo Moravec turned to writing when he found his career in Czechoslovakia blocked because of his father's role years earlier during the Prague Spring of 1968. He penned the lyrics to some three hundred songs (many of them performed and a few recorded), the script for a TV comedy (accepted but never produced), a stage play (accepted by a theatre company but, again, never produced), and a series of fairy tales that was actually broadcast on Czechoslovak national radio. In 1983, fed up with the restrictions imposed on his parallel careers, Moravec fled with his family to Austria. In Canada, the Moravecs settled in London, Ontario, where Ivo eventually found work on the assembly line at the Ford plant. He abandoned all hope of being a writer, sure that he would never be able to write well enough in English. Then came a turning point, when he was dragged to the Grand Theatre to see a production of a play by Athol Fugard. Overpowered by this artistic experience, he wrote a short story about the episode, which he submitted to a local Between Cultures arts competition. He won. That was all the encouragement he needed to begin Tightrope Passage. Moravec is currently at work on a sequel and on a collection of short stories. Size: 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Nº de ref. del artículo: 003794

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