The Guinea Pigs is a chilling fable about dehumanization and alienation representing Vaculik's vision of the menace of Soviet domination in the wake of the 1969 invasion. Written in 1970, it is a sweeping condemnation of totalitarianism, embedded in a rich, imaginative, highly experimental narrative. In the words of the New York Review of Books it is "one of the major works of literature produced in postwar Europe."

LUDVÍK VACULÍK (1926–2015) was a Czech writer and journalist. A prominent samizdat writer, he is most famous as the author of the "Two Thousand Words" manifesto of June 1968.

"The juicy, mischevious earthiness of the language Vaculik uses to narrate his monstrous parable about men and guinea pigs presents special problems. Fortunately for Káča Poláčková is an excellent translator, well equal to the challenge." —Antonin J. Liehm