Arts

Banned Works Drawing a Crowd in Prague: Savoring the reordering of cultural priorities, visitors to the Museum of Czech Literature in Prague are flocking to the least polished, most hastily organized display in the building--bypassing medieval literature exhibits, the Renaissance collections and the lavish displays about socialism. People have been crowding into two small side rooms to linger over a display of several dozen examples of the thousands of novels, essays and plays that were banned by the Communists and will now be available on a widespread basis. “Under these foolish regimes, lots of people were, let us say, put aside,” museum librarian Milan Klastersky said. For the last 40 years, staff members had little choice but to remove the works of banned authors from the shelves and place the volumes in a special room to which only Communist Party members had a key. A small sampling of previously banned works are in a dozen glass-topped cases in the exhibition that opened last week under the title “Prohibited Library.”