Too Loud a Solitude

Heavily autobiographical and self-published in 1976, this short novel went through several iterations due to official censorship until it was officially published in 1989, just before the Velvet Revolution. 

Too Loud a Solitude is the story of Haňťa - a man who has lived in a Czech police state - for 35 years, working as compactor of wastepaper and books. In the process of compacting, he has acquired an education so unwitting he can't quite tell which of his thoughts are his own and which come from his books. He has rescued many from jaws of hydraulic press and now his house is filled to the rooftops. Destroyer of the written word, he is also its perpetrator. But when a new automatic press makes his job redundant there's only one thing he can do - go down with his ship.