The Prague Writers' Festival (PWF) () is an annual

literary festival A literary festival, also known as a book festival or writers' festival, is a regular gathering of writers and readers, typically on an annual basis in a particular city. A literary festival usually features a variety of presentations and readings ...

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, Czech Republic, taking place every spring since 1991. In 2005, the festival was also held in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. Many of the events are broadcast via the internet. International literary figures to have appeared at the festival include

John Banville William John Banville (born 8 December 1945) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, Literary adaptation, adapter of dramas and screenwriter. Though he has been described as "the heir to Marcel Proust, Proust, via Vladimir Nabokov, Nabokov", ...

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. An author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, and ...

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( ; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern wor ...

Irvine Welsh Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist and short story writer. His 1993 novel ''Trainspotting (novel), Trainspotting'' was made into a Trainspotting (film), film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, ...

, William Styron and

Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great ben ...

History

The festival's origins are in London in the late 1970s, when PWF president Michael March began organising poetry readings at

Keats House Keats House is a writer's house museum in what was once the home of the Romantic poet John Keats. It is in Keats Grove, Hampstead, in inner north London. Maps before about 1915 show the road with one of its earlier names, John Street; the ...

. As permitted by the

Helsinki Accords The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration, was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, betwee ...

, writers from the

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

were invited to participate. After the

fall of the Berlin Wall The fall of the Berlin Wall (, ) on 9 November in German history, 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, marked the beginning of the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain, as East Berlin transit restrictions we ...

, the readings relocated to Prague, due to its reputation as "a natural host and meeting place for writers". Writers from various countries were invited to Prague as a crossroads between East and West to present their work and their culture to an international audience in the form of discussions and readings. The first Prague Writers’ Festival took place at

Wallenstein Palace Waldstein Palace () is a Baroque palace in Malá Strana, Prague, that served as a residence for Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Generalissimo Albrecht von Waldstein and now houses the Senate of the Czech Republic. History The original Palace was b ...

in May 1991 and was themed "Wedding Preparations in the Country". Over the next twenty years, Prague Writers' Festival became an increasingly important event in Prague's cultural life.

Themes

* 1991 - Wedding Preparations in the Country * 1992 - Paradise lost * 1993 - 1995 - without theme * 1996 - Ancient evenings * 1997 - dedicated to Samuel Beckett * 1998 - dedicated to Bohumil Hrabal * 1999 - dedicated to Vladimir Holan * 2000 - dedicated to Jaroslav Seifert * 2001 - dedicated to Primo Levi: "If Not Now, When?" * 2002 - dedicated to Jean Genet * 2003 - dedicated to William S. Burroughs: "We don't report the news. We write it." * 2004 - dedicated to Joseph Roth: "I don't know where I'm going." * 2005 - dedicated to Giacomo Casanova: "Our ignorance becomes our sole resource" * 2006 - dedicated to Arthur Miller: "There is no life without ideals." * 2007 - Dada East * 2008 - Laughter and Forgetting * 2009 - 2001 Nights: The Art of Storytelling * 2010 - Heresy and Rebellion * 2011 - Some Like It Hot * 2012 - Only the Future Exists * 2013 - The Birth of Nations * 2014 - Love and Hate * 2015 - Fear * 2016 - Crime and Punishment * 2017 - The Fire Next Time * 2018 - Live — Evil * 2019 - Beauty Saves the World * 2020 - We are Condemned to Hope

Activities

Festival program

The main focus of the festival is the public readings. Every evening during the event, authors take the stage for an "audience with" event and read excerpts from their work, each writer reading in their native language while Czech and English translations are provided simultaneously. Authors also appear in other supporting events such as book signings, concerts, or film projections. Each day a new conversation, dedicated to a literary or political subject, is held. The hour-long discussions are followed by questions from the audience.

Media outreach

The main media partner of the PWF is the British daily newspaper ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', which often refers to festival events, issues, and news on its cultural pages. Many of the events are streamed live on the internet and the festival's website also hosts an archive of previous events. The festival's archives are available to the public online, in a database of Czech and English texts. One of the aims of the PWF Foundation is to secure funding for the full digitisation of its archives.

Other projects

As a cultural foundation, Prague Writers’ Festival is engaged year-round in other cultural activities. The PWF Foundation publishes books and helps to organize concerts (such as Ed Sanders and the

Plastic People of the Universe The Plastic People of the Universe (PPU) is a Czech Rock music, rock band from Prague. They are considered the foremost representatives of Prague underground (culture), Prague's underground culture (1968–1989), which defied Czechoslovak Soci ...

) and movie screenings, as well as art exhibitions (such as ''Dada East?'' and ''The World in 1968''). The Prague Writers’ Festival offers discount tickets and other benefits to high school classes, and also works in partnership with principals and teachers at local schools to organise the annual Walter Serner Short Story Prize. By virtue of its focus on humanities, languages, and literature, the festival also has a long-standing partnership with several Czech universities and with the University of New York in Prague. It also cooperates with students from

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

Masaryk University Masaryk University (MU) (; ) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno, it now consists of ten faculties and 35,115 students. It is named after To ...

and the Prague College of Journalism to arrange activities for the festival.

Notable guests

Nobel Prize Winners

Gao Xingjian Gao Xingjian ( zh, 高行健; born January 4, 1940) is a Chinese émigré and later French naturalized novelist, playwright, critic, painter, photographer, film director, and translator who in 2000 was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature, ...

(PWF 2009, Nobel Prize 2000) *

Wole Soyinka Wole Soyinka , (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty five plays and five memoirs. He also wrote two transla ...

(PWF 2006, Nobel Prize 1986) *

(PWF 2004, Nobel Prize 1991) *

Harold Pinter Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A List of Nobel laureates in Literature, Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramat ...

(PWF 1999, Nobel Prize 2005) *

José Saramago José de Sousa Saramago (; 16 November 1922 – 18 June 2010) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese writer. He was the recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony ith which ...

(PWF 1994, Nobel Prize 1998) * Herta Müller (PWF 1999, Nobel Prize 2009) * Derek Walcott">Herta Müller">ith which ...

History

Themes

Activities

Festival program

Media outreach

Other projects

Notable guests

Nobel Prize Winners

Man Booker Prize Winners

Pulitzer Prize Winners

See also

References

External links