Paul Robert Wilson Books

An intimate history of Czechoslovakia under communism; a meditation on the social and political role of art, and a triumphant statement of the values underlying all the recent revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe.

One of the last artistic expressions of life under communism, this novel captures the atmosphere in Prague between 1983 and 1987, where a dance could be broken up by the secret police, a traffic offense could lead to surveillance, and where contraband books were the currency of the underworld.

Václav Havel was born in Prague on October 5, 1936, but faced limited educational opportunities due to his "bourgeois" background. He studied at the Economics Faculty of the Czech Technical University from 1955 to 1957, then began working in theater after compulsory military service. Havel joined Prague's Theater on the Balustrade in 1960, where his plays gained international acclaim. From 1962 to 1966, he studied dramaturgy at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and became involved in the Prague Spring reforms, which ended with the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968. Opposing the invasion and subsequent hard-line Communist policies, Havel's work was banned in Czechoslovakia in 1969. In 1977, he co-founded the Charter 77 human rights initiative, facing house arrest in 1978-79 and multiple incarcerations for his beliefs. In November 1989, he emerged as a leader of Civic Forum, the movement that helped end Communist rule, and was elected president of Czechoslovakia on December 9, 1989. He was re-elected on July 5, 1990, but resigned on July 20, 1992, as the country approached dissolution. On January 26, 1993, he became the first president of the Czech Republic. Havel's plays, essays, and speeches have been globally performed and translated, earning him numerous international awards.