the real beginning
The last two letters I’ve sent out begin Havel’s term in Heřmanice, the prison in Ostrava, far from Prague and their country house in Hrádeček. About a four-hour drive. This is the fourth or fifth time I’ve read these letters now, and they seem less headlong and rambly than I’d thought at first; this is…
Olga, speaking for herself
A few months back, Havel’s Canadian translator, Paul Wilson, dropped a small grenade in my inbox when he sent me an 1989 interview with Olga that he’d published in 1991, in the erstwhile Idler. My impression of Olga, from various newspaper and magazine pieces written after Havel had been in office for a while, was…
Ruzyně Prison
The prison where Havel’s being held in the letters sent out so far is this one, Ruzyně Prison in Prague, so he isn’t far from home and it isn’t difficult for Olga to make the trip, which may strike some Americans as a cozy affair. If you take an intercity bus in the Midwest now…
I hesitated
There’s always the danger, in a project like this, of enjoying the theatre of real events too much. Playacting someone else’s dangerous time. Which means that when your own world turns dangerous in the midst of your playacting, a question of nerve comes up. We have a pandemic; we have Trump and the people using…
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The Havel Project 