Ján Rozner

“An unsparing exploration of the inner world of modern man and a testament to the perversity of the normalization period (…) when [the authorities] tried to censor even the funeral speech of a brave university professor, who subsequently lost his university position, and when simply attending Jesenská’s funeral cost people their livelihood. It ought to be made compulsory reading for anyone still nostalgic for milk at two crowns a bottle or for fat fees collected by authors of so-called socialist ‘littérature engagé’.”
“It is no exaggeration to say that this is a key Slovak book of the second half of the 20th century and absolutely deserves to become part of the literary canon. Rozner, a nearly forgotten cultural figure, had been erased from our archives and libraries with a deliberateness typical of paranoid dictatorships. (…) Rather than concealing himself or others behind fictitious characters the author uses only real names, turning inside out the accepted view of many members of the so-called elite. A multi-layered, shocking, extraordinary work!”
“Unique in the Slovak context, this is a vivid probe into the psycho-sociology of a gloomy country in the 1970s, a country in which we still live.  Ján Rozner has left us a harrowing analytical chronicle of the cultural history of Slovakia and those who took part in it. Yet, like all great literature, his book also speaks of love, death, and what it means to be a human being.“
“Rather than skimming the surface like other books covering similar subject matter, Seven Days to the Funeral presents the essence of the past regime in a mature, literary form. Rozner's memoir, which has the feel of a novel, offers a fascinating literary testimony of our recent past.” 
“Using the language of fiction the author has managed to draw a political fresco whose form reflects the façade of normalization. Despite his factual 1970s style the author has not produced a black-and-white work but rather a document displaying many shades of grey.  Showing the many failures of its heroes and anti-heroes, Rozner has enriched Slovak literature with an intimate, profoundly humane novel.“
“With his penetrating analytical view of our recent history Rozner shows how many of our personalities and “personalities” have feet of clay. His sceptical view of national, social and professional sentiments makes this book stand out from the run of Slovak memoirs, which their authors often use as a means of 'reinterpreting' their past attitudes and actions.”