President Václav Klaus receives literary prize

Letohrad, East Bohemia, Sept 22 (CTK) - President Vaclav Klaus yesterday received the annual Egon Erwin Kisch Prize for non-fiction for Czech writers for his book The Seventh Year, Miroslav Kucera, secretary of the Non-Fiction Literature Club, told journalists.

Of Slovak writers, the main award went to Ivan Szabo for his book Laughter and Tears of Tatra Revue.

The Seventh Year is another part of the foreseen 10-volume series of Klaus's speeches and commentaries with which he has described his first and second presidential terms.

Klaus was elected for the first time in 2003, re-elected in 2008 and his second, last term will expire in 2013.

In the preface, Klaus described the book as a "rather distinct chronicle of our time, devoted to all deeply interested in contemporary reality and to whom the president's views, approaches and thought help orientate themselves in the reality."

Unlike the previous volume, the book has a different structure. This time, Klaus did not arrange his observations chronologically, but according to themes.