Events: January 2018 December 2017 February 2018
A Reading for Josef Škvorecký
January 4, 2018, 17:00
Josef Škvorecký, one of the most important post-war Czech writers and the founder of the exile publishing house ‘68 Publishers, died six years ago, on 3 January 2012. A host of personalities, aficionados of his work, experts and readers will read from his books. More
Debate with Respekt
January 9, 2018, 19:00
Discussion with Respekt editors and their guests on a topical issue. More information will be posted at least one week before the event at www.vaclavhavel-library.org.
Miloš Doležal: Documenting small-town normalisation life
January 11, 2018, 19:00
Presentation of Miloš Doležal’s new book Jízda Na Skle Ochcanou Strání (which could be translated as Riding Glass Down a Piss-Sodden Slope), which records shards and fragments of life in small-town Vysočina against the backdrop of 1970s and 1980s normalisation in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. More
Václav Vacek: Doesn’t Life End with Death?
January 16, 2018, 19:00
Are you also tormented by the meaningless of death? Not just when loved ones die? We humbly ask whether posing questions is futile or a privilege of ours. There are more questions than answers. Hopefully we will get closer to some of the answers. More
Milada Blekastad – Letters in a Time of Repression
January 17, 2018, 19:00
The correspondence of Milada Blekastad (nee Topičová) with Jan Patočka, Ludvík Vaculík and Julie Nováková. More
I Didn’t Have the Last Word, Incidentally
January 18, 2018, 19:00
Ceremonial launch of Josef K. Šlejhar’s novel Cvrček mého krbu (The Cricket of My Fireplace). More
Václav Havel: The Pig and Ela, Hela and the Hitch
January 22, 2018, 19:00
On how a playwright has desperately searched for a pig for a pig-killing and how old ladies hitch rides. More
Evenings with Polish Reporters: A Painfully Close War
January 23, 2018, 19:00
Slaughter taking place just a few hundred kilometres from the Czech border. Genocide playing out in the middle of Europe in the 1990s. Can we comprehend the brutal Yugoslav war? Or describe it? The Polish reporter Wojciech Tochman and the Czech journalist Jan Urban attempted to do so in their books of reportage. More
Eugen Brikcius: Postil
January 24, 2018, 19:00
The versatile artist and writer, prankster, Dadaist and Chartist Eugen Brikcius, who is 75 this year, has produced his 19th book. Postila (Postil) is an analysis: of life and work, generally and specifically. A 36-minute novel with illustrations by Ellen Jilemnická. More
Why and How to Speak about Mental Health and Psychiatric Illnesses?
January 29, 2018, 19:00
In the Czech Republic depression and bipolar disorders affect more people than diabetes and asthma, and anxiety disorders are twice as common again (almost 1.5 million people). According to the World Health Organisation, psychiatric illnesses accounts for 40 percent of all illnesses and approximately every fourth person will experience some form of mental illness in the course of their life. However, we speak about mental health far less than about physical wellbeing. More
Russians in Prague
January 30, 2018, 19:00
On “Russian traces” in the Czech Republic in the past and nowadays. More
Vladimír Hanzel’s Listening Disco
January 31, 2018, 19:00
Vladimír Hanzel was for 14 years secretary to Václav Havel, both as a dissident and as president, and is also an expert on music. More