Havel's dramas published in new English translation in USA

New York, Oct 5 (by CTK correspondent) - A collection of some plays of former Czech President Vaclav Havel (1936-2011) in a new English translation has been published in the United States and presented in the Czech Centre in Manhattan in the night of Friday, on the occasion of Havel's birthday.

Havel's dramas were published by the Theater 61 Press publishing house, part of Untitled Theater #61 in New York.

The book includes plays from various periods of Havels'life: The Memorandum (Vyrozumeni, 1965), The Increased Difficulty of Concentration (Ztizena moznost soustredeni, 1968,), the plays featuring his alter ego "Vanek," The Pig (Prase, 1987) and his last play Leaving (Odchazeni, 2007).

They were translated by Canadian translator Paul Wilson, university tutor Stepan Simek, working in Portland, and Untitled Theater #61 artistic director Edward Einhorn, who staged a festival of Havel in New York in 2006.

Havel stayed in New York for seven weeks at the invitation of the University of Colombia then. Last time he visited New York in 2010.

"On the occasion of Havel's 70th birthday Einhorn got the idea of making new translations of his plays," Simek told CTK.

He said he found inspiration for his translation in the works by Briton of Czech origin Tom Stoppard and some American authors of the Theatre of the Absurd, such as Edward Albee.

Einhorn noted that he had problems to find an equivalent for some nonsense words that appeared in Havel's works.

He said it seemed interesting to him that Havel had applied the absurd aspects of Eugene Ionesco's dramas to the then Czechoslovak conditions.

Havel, playwright, thinker, former dissident and the last Czechoslovak and the first Czech president (in office in December 1989-March 2003), died in his country house in Hradecek, east Bohemia, on December 18, 2011, aged 75 years.