Vaclav Havel is one of the most important European writers of our time. In 1979 he was sentenced to four and a half years of hard labour for his involvement in the Czech human rights movement, Charter 77. In prison he was allowed to write to his wife, Olga, once a week. He used the opportunity for profound reflections, on theatre, society and philosophy. These letters form a remarkable document, and a work of lasting value.

'From Havel, we learn that the true heroes of our time are those who stay the course.' Bruce Chatwin

Václav Havel was born in Czechoslovakia in 1936. Among his plays, those best known in the West areThe Garden Party, The Memorandum, Largo Desolato, Temptation, and three one-act plays, Audience,Private View and Protest. He is a founding spokesman of Charter 77 and the author of many influential essays on the nature of totalitarianism and dissent. In 1979 he was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for his involvement in the human rights movement. Out of this imprisonment came his book of letters to his wife, Letters to Olga (1981). In November 1989 he helped to found the Civic Forum, the first legal opposition movement in Czechoslovakia in forty years; in December 1989 he was elected President of Czechoslovakia; and in 1994 became the first President of the independent Czech Republic. His memoir, To the Castle and Back, was published in 2007.