Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:05:42 +0200https://english.radio.cz/heda-margolius-kovaly-and-a-murder-mystery-1950s-prague-8244592© 2026 Radio Prague InternationalIn the course of a life that spanned over 90 years, the writer and translator Heda Margolius Kovály survived the very worst that the twentieth century could bring: first Auschwitz and then the anti-Semitic show trials in 1950s Czechoslovakia, in which her husband was sentenced to death and executed. She died in 2010, but her moving account of her life, Under a Cruel Star, continues to be read widely. Heda Margolius Kovály also wrote a second book, a detective story set in Stalinist Prague. The book is a novel – taking inspiration from Raymond Chandler – but it is also steeped in autobiographical detail, a murder mystery that digs under the surface of a dark period in Czechoslovak history. For the first time it has been published in English translation. More from David Vaughan.encr@radio.cz (Cesky Rozhlas)webmaster@radio.cz (CRo Webmaster) https://english.radio.cz/sites/default/files/images/margolius_kovaly_innocence.jpg?timestamp=1590640424 https://english.radio.cz/heda-margolius-kovaly-and-a-murder-mystery-1950s-prague-8244592 Radio Prague International Radio Prague International radio.prague.int@gmail.com clean 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9