Lenka Marečková: Long Live Society!
- Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
- When: April 4, 2019, 19:00 – 21:00
Presentation of the book Ať žije společnost (Long Live Society!), an anthology of three poetry collections by Lenka Marečková.
The writer, a Charter 77 signatory, was convicted and imprisoned in the 1980s at the age of 20 for her poetry criticising the country’s then political system.
In the book’s foreword, Marečková, who is today a lawyer, writes: “Democracy, sometimes reduced to mere mechanisms and instruments, is threatened both by growing problems and crises and linked calls for security (in the form of a strong nation or strong leader) and by the evisceration of its content. If we regarded the previous regime as totalitarian, we can observe today that what was sown then has now germinated and is thriving in a way we didn’t anticipate then and couldn’t have foreseen. Today nobody will lock me up over poetry. At the same time, I don’t believe that today’s injustices are lesser. They’re just different. What’s worth doing today? Way back, shouting sufficed… Let’s look at where the roots of our troubles lie. At changes that would be worthwhile. At what needs to be abandoned and what transformed. Let’s search together for the causes of this situation, ways forward and functioning alternatives. It’s time to break the cycle.”
Introduced by Jáchym Topol. Hosted by the book’s editor Martin Machovec.
Music and vocals: Dáša Vokatá and Oldřich Kaiser.
Organised by the Václav Havel Library in cooperation with the Kalich publishing house.