Ladislav Fuks (1923-94) was an outstanding Czech writer whose work, consisting primarily of psychological fiction, explores themes of anxiety and life in totalitarian systems. Fuks is best known for his works of short fiction set during the Holocaust, specifically "The Cremator," a story - later made into a film - about a worker in a crematorium, who, under the influence of Nazi propaganda, murders his entire family. Written before the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 but not published until 1970, Of Mice and Mooshaber is Fuks' first novel. The story takes place in an unspecified country...

"The devil's neatest trick is to persuade us that he doesn't exist."--Giovanni Papini

It is a maxim that both rings true in our contemporary world and pervades this tragicomic novel of anxiety and evil set amid the horrors of World War II. As a gay man living in a totalitarian, patriarchal society, noted Czech writer Ladislav Fuks identified with the tragic fate of his Jewish countrymen during the Holocaust. The Cremator arises from that shared experience. Fuks presents a grotesque, dystopian world in which a dutiful father, following the strict logic of his time, liberates the...