Writer and Dramatist; One of the first Spokesmen for Charter 77; Leading Figure of the Velvet Revolution of 1989; Last President of Czechoslovakia; and First President of the Czech Republic
Jan Štolba, a poet, prose writer, jazz musician and literary critic, publishes his texts and essays in cultural and literary magazines and dailies (Tvar, A2, Host). His 2011 collection of criticism “Lomcování se slovy” (“Agitation with Words”) follows his 2006 book “Nedopadající džbán” (“Unfalling Jug”) which was published by Torst and in 2007 won the F. X. Šalda Prize. Štolba now “agitates with words” in over 52 poetry books and contemporary Czech prose titles. The evening was hosted by Jan Šulc, who led a discussion with the writer.
„Technology – that child of modern science, which in turn is a child of modern metaphysics – is out of humanity’s control, has ceased to serve us, has enslaved us and compelled us to participate in the preparation of our own destruction. And humanity can find no way out: we have no idea and no faith, and even less do we have a political conception to help us bring things back under human control. We look on helplessly as that coldly functioning machine we have created inevitably engulfs us, tearing us away from our natural affiliations (for instance, from our habitat in the widest sense of that word, including our habitat in the biosphere) just as it removes us from the experience of Being and casts us into the world of “existences”.“
Václav Havel: Power of the Powerless – samizdat essay, October 1978
