Oysters in Prague. Life After the (Prague) Spring

With a diploma from an elite Stockholm school in his hand, in the early 1970s Richard Swartz looked for a way to escape his father’s will and settled in Prague. He wanted to become a native of Prague, and to share everyday life with the locals. Everything from

toilet paper to morality was in short supply, and the lost utopia was washed down with

beer. Unlike many of his generation, Swartz did not believe that socialism could be

reformed. At dinner parties, hosts laid the table with oyster spoons although there had

been no oysters for decades in Prague, a city in which only dogs could live a decent life,

according to his girlfriend Jarka.

Richard Swartz narrates a story of human warmth and great affection, but also of misery

and lies in a dictatorship.