''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 *Czech (surnam ...

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

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

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 2 ...

, and future president,

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. Havel served as the last List of presidents of Czechoslovakia, president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissol ...

to his wife

Olga Havlová Olga Havlová (nee Šplíchalová; 11 July 1933 – 27 January 1996) was a Czech dissident, activist, and the first wife of Václav Havel, the last President of Czechoslovakia and first President of the Czech Republic. Havlová, the inaugural F ...

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 Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

for being one of the leaders of The

Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted The Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted (; as a result the acronym VONS is used) was a Czechoslovak dissident organization founded largely by Charter 77 signatories. VONS was founded on 27 April 1978. Founding and political aims ...

(VONS) – most of whom had been signatories of the human rights document

Charter 77 Charter 77 (''Charta 77'' in Czech language, Czech and Slovak language, 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 ...

. Author

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 ...

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 The Satanic Verses controversy#Fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini, 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