Ivan Klima’s Premier a Andel (The Prime Minister and the Angel) – a note at the end of the book tells us – was written between April 2002 and January 2003 but Klima writes with such ease that it gives the impression of having been written yesterday between a late breakfast and lunch with a rather good wine. The unscrupulous journalist, the philandering first (or second?) lady, the crooked soldier with his soldier’s tongue, the young minister on the make, the potshots taken at greens, the youth of today and political PR flaks are all a little too casual. An earnest young writer (Klima is in his 70s) might have spent months and years exploring and fleshing out these tortured characters, presenting their weaknesses, their agonising moral debates, their self-delusions and their compromises in a densely plotted narrative taking place against the epic sweep of the birth of a nation to democracy… Klima dashes it all off effortlessly. The resulting lack of depth should not matter as this is a fable about a middle-aged man who is visited by an angel: the intervention of a supernatural being will show up all the political machinations for the petty affairs of mortals that they are, unworthy of serious development. The only trouble is the angel puts in his (her) first appearance more than half way through the book.