I Am Snowing is one of the first major novels to come out of the new Eastern Europe.

Set in today's Prague, it offers a vivid portrait of a nation in transition. When Professor Victor Kral - who had left Czechoslovakia during the Communist years and has returned to lead an economic reform program - is accused of collaborating with the secret police, he turns to his lover, Petra Marova, for help.

Petra, who never left the country and has tried to shut out its realities with a long series of lovers, happens to have had an affair with Josef Benes, the man who supposedly recruited Victor into the secret police. Petra is easily able to make Josef disavow the connection. But he makes her doubt Victor's innocence and sets her off on a complex and ill-fated investigation - aimed half at vindicating Victor, half at unmasking him

1. A stylish combination of political allegory and whodunit, I Am Snowing poses the paramount question of post-totalitarian Eastern Europe: After forty years of terror and submission, who are we now and how much does it matter who we were before?