Utz by Bruce Chatwin - 1989-12-01

Utz collects Meissen porcelain with a passion. His collection, which he has protected and enlarged through both WWII and Czechoslovakia's years of Stalinism, numbers more than 1000 pieces, all crammed into his two-room Prague flat. Upon his death, the porcelain becomes the property of the state. Utz is allowed to leave the country each year, and although he has considered defection, he always returns. He cannot take his precious collection with him, but he cannot leave it either. And so Utz is as much owned by his porcelain as it is owned by him as much a prisoner of the collection as of the Communist state.