In connection with the announcement of the results of its third annual Books of the Year poll, Deník N is holding a debate on how Czech literature is reported on in the Czech media.

A discussion dedicated to Professor Robert Kvaček (1932–2024): historian, writer, teacher and master wordsmith: “A historian shouldn’t read only historical literature, but also fiction and poetry. I was laughed at for using poetry in my explanations. But it has a profound meaning. A historian also needs to be educated in more than one field, otherwise he becomes a professional imbecile. And that’s not on. But a historian needs to mature. Unlike a physicist who’s at his peak at 30, he’s at his peak at 50. They still have time.” Historians Petr Koura, Josef Nožička and Josef Tomeš will appear as guests, while historian Michal Macháček will chair the event.

Announcement of the results of the 17th annual edition of the Václav Havel Library’s student essay competition in the presence of students and the jury. The theme of this year’s competition was: Could(n’t) artificial intelligence write my essay for me? Václav Havel’s essays such as The Power of the Powerless and A Word About Words, have become classic texts of Czech literature; they have been translated into tens of languages, and are among the few truly world-famous works of Czech culture. This is also why it is necessary to keep cultivating the essay genre in the Czech language – not in the sense of imitating Václav Havel’s writing, but in the spirit of his courage to name unpleasant problems and search for unconventional solutions to them. This year’s jury comprised the following figures from Czech public life: journalist Filip Titlbach, writer and journalist Anna Beata Háblová, journalist Tereza Šídlová, media analyst Josef Šlerka, journalist and poet Jonáš Zbořil.

Alsu Krumasheva, a journalist with Radio Free Europe, spent more than nine months in prison in Russia. In May 2023 she travelled to Kazan to visit her sick mother, but the Russian authorities did not allow her to leave the country and return to Prague, where she has lived with her husband and two daughters since 1998. She was charged, detained for months and sentenced to six and a half years for “spreading false information about the Russian army”. The United States government, Radio Free Europe, human rights organisations, and most importantly, Alsu’s family worked tirelessly for her release. On August 1 of this year, after nine months in a cold prison cell, she was finally freed, thanks to a historic prisoner exchange between the West and Russia.

St. Nicholas Eve with Jiří Peňás’s Expeditions. A cheerful soiree with melancholic pop songs against a backdrop of a conversation between two old buccaneers, Jáchym Topol and Jiří Peňás, who will try to evoke the atmosphere of smoke-scented journeys beyond the horizons of everyday life. The evening will include the ceremonial shaking of boxes of collected writings.   

Our stand offering new publications, several reprints of out-of-stock titles and a proven range of books and merchandise produced by the Václav Havel Library will be present at this traditional festival of small publishers in Pilsen.

A legendary “Vaněk” play as performed by the Divadlo na tahu theatre company. The one-act play Audience (1975) was originally written for the amusement of the author’s friends at Hrádeček and today features in school leaving exams. It has entertained and educated audiences at theatres in Czechia and beyond.

Discussions featuring editors from the weekly Respekt and their guests. For more details visit www.vaclavhavel.cz prior to the event. This edition will be moderated by František Trojan.

While a few years back it seemed that only a few “insiders” were talking about art in public space, today it can feel like literally everyone has something to say on the matter. What do the case of David Černý and Máj and the petitions against the management of the National Gallery and the Academy of Fine Arts say about us? How did Milan Knížák, the former rebel of Czech culture, become an artistic dictator? Why did the Jindřich Chalupecký Award, intended to support emerging artists, evolve into an elitist enterprise? And is it true that money doesn’t stink in art? Jan H. Vitvar, art critic and head of the arts section of the weekly Respekt, and Jakub Sedláček, editor-in-chief of Paseka, will discuss current issues and events in the art world and the former’s new book Umění, kterému rozumějí úplně (Art Absolutely Everyone Understands).

Have you noticed that there are three Christmas stories in the Bible, and each is completely different? You haven’t noticed? In that case come to this Pastoral Brothers pre-Christmas lecture – it’ll change how you see Christmas. The Evangelical ministers who present themselves in public as the Pastoral Brothers had the idea of creating videos over a beer. They are young and their faith in God means a lot to them. They show that today’s church needn’t be preserved like a thing of the past and strive to speak in a contemporary way about Christian themes with timeless relevance.

A discussion evening on the challenges of translation in the context of the Nobel Prize for Literature. The story of this year’s laureate, Han Kang, illustrates the crucial role of translation in the contemporary literary world. Her novel The Vegetarian, published in Korea in 2007, received international recognition only after its English translation in 2016, when it won the prestigious Man Booker Prize. Her most recent novel, I Do Not Bid Farewell, has not yet been translated into English. However, it was released in a Swedish translation in the spring – a fact that undoubtedly played a role in the Swedish Academy’s decision to award her the Nobel Prize. This development raises again questions about the ways literature travels across languages and cultures. How does literature from “small” languages reach global readers? What does it mean to translate from Korean, a language not only geographically but also structurally distant? And what is the role of translation into English as an intermediary language?

At the pre-Christmas Knihex, a festival of small publishers, you will also find a Václav Havel Library stand. As part of an accompanying programme, we will present our new books, which – along with established titles, posters and other essentials – will be available for purchase on both days.