''Letters to Olga'' (''

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

:Dopisy Olze'') is a book compiled from letters written by Czech playwright,

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th ...

, and future president,

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...

to his wife Olga Havlová during his nearly four-year imprisonment from May 1979 to March 1983. (Havel was released when he came down with a high fever and received a medical discharge.) Havel was imprisoned by the communist government of then

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

for being one of the leaders of The Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS) – most of whom had been signatories of the human rights document

Charter 77 Charter 77 (''Charta 77'' in Czech and Slovak) was an informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Jiří Něm ...

. Author

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

stated in a 1999 interview, that ''Letters to Olga'' was among a small handful of books that he carried with him living in secret locations during the years he was hiding from possible execution.Keane. p. 302.

References

Works by Václav Havel 1988 non-fiction books Collections of letters {{poli-bio-book-stub

See also

References