By Stephan Delbos

The Prague Writers’ Festival

June 1-5

Free-300kc (Depending on event)

www.pwf.cz

May in Prague might be the time of love and lilacs, but in 1968 it was a time of dreams and petals crushed beneath the treads of invading Soviet tanks. This May marks the fortieth anniversary of the sudden, militant end of nearly a decade of “democratic communism,” during which Prague artists and intellectuals worked to expand the oppressive paradigms of communist rule. And they were not alone. The events of 1968 Prague were mirrored in cities throughout the world. The Paris riots, student riots in Pakistan, protests in Moscow, the Civil Rights protests and tragic assassination of Martin Luther King Jr: these independent expressions of disillusionment give just a taste of the volatile state of the world in that unique year.

It should come as no surprise, then, that this year’s Prague Writers’ Festival is entitled “1968: Laughter and Forgetting.” The festival seeks to do more than simply reinvestigate the events of forty years ago, however. According to festival president Michael March, “1968 represents a way of thinking, a consciousness that is missing today. We could call it the Freudian complex vs. the military industrial complex. But what is that consciousness exactly and what are we missing now?” This is just one of the questions The Prague Writers’ Festival will pose to honored guests and audience alike over a five-day series of readings and conversations featuring an international group of celebrated writers.

Each of the twenty-one writers featured in this year’s festival were witnesses to the global events of 1968, each from their own perspective, and in each their own respective countries. The Czech writers involved, including Ivan Klíma and Petr Král, witnessed the events in Prague first-hand. Russian writer Natalia Gorbanevskaya took part in protests on Red Square. Tariq Ali helped organize student protests in Pakistan. These and all the writers involved will act as witnesses and representatives of both personal and universal history. “1968 created a wound that must be re-examined,” says March. “For the older generation, the festival and the dialogues that take place will be a cleansing, a purification. For the younger generation, it will be an opportunity to actively engage with the past.”

The festival is not only about writing, however. Paul Auster will host a free showing of his latest film The Inner Life of Martin Frost, and American poet Michael McClure will not only contribute poetry and dialogue, but a song written for the festival.

The Prague Writers Festival is not a showcase of the latest airport novelists. It is, as March says, “an intellectual event, not a commercial one. We are asking the audience to trust us; trust the festival. Come to the events, come join the dialogue and be a part of this comparison, this choice.”

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