Prague, Oct 10 (CTK) – The notes from a custody prison written by dissident and later president Vaclav Havel (1936-2011) have been published by the Vaclav Havel Library that yesterday presented the new book, which will be out on Thursday.
“The four months of 1977 are not a heroic episode in the life of Vaclav Havel. It was a hard time in which he had a feeling of failure,” Vaclav Havel Library director Michael Zantovsky said.
“For me, it is a testimony about a crucial moment, about a transformation of a person,” said Zantovsky who assisted Havel when he was president.
Havel talked neither about his stay in the custody prison nor about his notes and nobody has probably known of their existence until recently. His prison diary was revealed by David Dusek when he organised documents of his late grandfather Zdenek Urbanek, translator and Havel’s friend two years ago.
Anna Freimannova, editor of Havel’s works, said the prison diary is the most intimate and inward text written by Havel.
She said Havel had been writing the diary in order to keep his imagination busy in an unfamiliar and hostile environment. Originally, he wanted to write plays in prison.
In the 1960s, Havel wrote several absurd dramas that were successfully staged both at home and abroad.
Freimannova said the diary also included common notes such as what Havel needed to do, such as to visit a dentist, buy a lawn mower, repair a garden wall, but he always added he would do it after being released from prison.
The diary was written in very small script as Havel probably feared that he would spend a long time in prison and would not have enough paper to write on.
Havel was remanded in custody shortly after he became a spokesman for the Charter 77 human rights manifesto that turned into an opposition movement.
Zantovsky said Havel’s feeling of his own failure in the custody prison resulted in his political essays, his plays from the 1980s and his dissident activities, including work in the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS).
Havel was remanded in custody repeatedly and he spent 3.5 years in prison in 1979-1983.
