What to do if mother’s love fails to develop and a bond is not formed? And the opposite. How is it to be destroyed with worry about a daughter? In the book Mami, miluju (Mum, I Love You) two-time Magnesia Litera winner Aleš Palán and his daughter Anna have explored one of the most important but also complicated of relationships, that between a mother and daughter. They spoke with five women trying to come to terms with such pathological or absent relationships. The book is illustrated by the photographs of Libuše Jarcovjáková, winner of the Personality of Czech Photography prize and Czech Grand Design nominee. Denisa Novotná will moderate.

The entrepreneur and billionaire Desmond Shum’s memoir deservedly earned worldwide attention. Not just because of the dramatic external events – Shum’s wife and business partner Whitney Duan mysteriously disappeared in Beijing in 2017 and there has been no sign of her for five years. The book also offers a unique insight into the red aristocracy that is the Chinese political and economic elite and explores the rise of current president Xi Jinping. Charles University Faculty of Arts sinologists Olga Lomová and Martin Hála, who are both with the project Sinopsis, will discuss the book Red Roulette and issues surrounding contemporary China with the book’s editor Filip Outrata.

At this year’s Book World Prague trade fair you will find a Václav Havel Library stand with both new and classic titles, posters and other essential items at a hall erected beside the Křižík Pavilion B.

Throughout his life Václav Havel was in the habit of asking awkward questions. One of them concerned where Europe began and ended. Linked to this was also the question of where Russia began and ended. The answer to the first of those two questions – which was the focus of a European Dialogues international conference organised five years ago by the VHL in cooperation with ZEK – is in Václav Havel’s view more linked to the set of values and cultural wealth created by Europe over two millennia than to geography. Havel suggested that Russia itself had been searching for the answer to the second question for centuries. Instead of gradually moving closer to democratic and European norms, Russia has taken the opposite path, causing bloodshed on Europe’s eastern borders that threatens the results of more than 75 years of largely peaceful development. “European values” and the “Russian world” have found themselves in irreconcilable opposition. The future of the entire continent depends on the outcome of this conflict, which concerns more than the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine.

Jiří Peňás will discuss his new novel Stříbrný kouzelník (The Silver Magician) with author Jindřich Mann.

Discussion between editors of the weekly Respekt and their guests. For more information and the names of guests visit www.vaclavhavel.cz prior to the event.

Poselství z Kyjeva o Ukrajině a Evropě (The Message from Kyiv on Ukraine and Europe), a book by Kyiv philosopher Constantin Sigov contains interviews and articles from the first six weeks of the Ukrainian war while also delivering a valuable account of the period when Russian forces stood before Kyiv and deep reflection on the meaning of this war. “We are not just saving our own skins, we are defending the ideals of dignity and freedom,” says Sigov, a leading figure in Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity from the turn of 2014.

Debate series with editors from the weekly Týdeník Echo and their guests in cooperation with the Václav Havel Library. Lenka Zlámalová will chair the discussion. For the theme and the names of guests, visit www.vaclavhavel.cz prior to the event.

The Bolshevik revolution and civil war sparked a huge wave of emigration from Russia, with exiles finding a safe haven in interwar Czechoslovakia. In a similar manner today Russians opposed for various reasons to Putin’s authoritarian regime and brutal war against brave Ukraine are heading for the Czech Republic and Europe. Russian emigration in the face of the current the country’s imperialist frenzy will be discussed by Russian historian and political scientist Andrej Zubov, descendant of Russian émigrés Alexej Kelin and Russia expert Milan Dvořák. Historian and philosopher Petr Hlaváček will moderate.

Presentation of Hledání rovnováhy aneb Život soudce (The Quest for Balance, or The Life of a Judge), a book-length interview conducted by Tomáš Němeček with Josef Baxa, co-founder of the Supreme Administrative Court. Taking part in a debate about the establishment of a state of law and the Czech judiciary alongside Josef Baxa and Tomáš Němeček will be Constitutional Court chief justice Pavel Rychetský.