A Report on the Correspondence between the Playwright Havel and the Publisher Škvorecký

Pages	197–203
DOI	10.37520/amnpsc.2022.043
Keywords	exile literature – dissent in Czechoslovakia in 1969–1989 – Charta 77 – Sixty-Eight Publishers
Type of Article	Matiční listy
Citation	PŘIBÁŇ, Michal. A Report on the Correspondence between the Playwright Havel and the Publisher Škvorecký. Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia litterarum. Prague: National Museum, 2022, 67(3-4), 197–203. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37520/amnpsc.2022.043. ISSN 2570-6861 (Print), 2570-687X (Online). Also available from: https://www.nm.cz/en/periodicals/acta-musei-nationalis-pragae-historia-litterarum/67-3-4/a-report-on-the-correspondence-between-the-playwright-havel-and-the-publisher-skvorecky

Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae – Historia litterarum | 2022/67/3-4

Josef Škvorecký and Václav Havel were among the most renowned figures of Czech culture of the second half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, their mutual relations developed when Škvorecký already lived in exile in Toronto and Havel faced Communist repressions as a spokesman of the Charta 77. When they began to cooperate on an exile edition of Havel’s plays in 1976, they had to overcome not only the obvious complications caused by the Communist regime but also the embarrassment at Havel’s parodic depiction in the character of the playwright Hejl in Škvorecký’s novel The Miracle Game (1972). Over the years, Havel gained more and more credit and respect from Škvorecký. The study presented is based on their mutual correspondence from the years 1976–1989. Primarily, it deals with their professional cooperation, yet it offers a more general perspective as well. The reader is thus given an insight into the publishing practice of the Škvoreckýs as well as into Havel’s civic and political strategies that made him an informal authority not only in dissent but also in exile.

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