Launch N: The Contemporary Czech Intelligentsia

This second volume of pen portraits by writer Pavel Kosatik confirms some encouraging news: Czech society in the 20th and early 21st centuries has produced, and continues to produce, a number of remarkable personalities or – in the words of Jan Patočka – spiritual people. Kosatík writes about them in his characteristic way, i.e., readably, with a feeling for the twists and turns of personal stories, but at the same time concisely and succinctly. The series of 50 texts, which have appeared weekly on the Deník N website and in print, may also be read as an attractive invitation to a deeper study of the lives and work of interesting women and men – beginning with the late sociologist Ivo Možný and ending with the youngest of Kosatík’s selections, the philosopher Tereza Matějčková. We invite you to a debate with the author, where we will “baptise” the book together.