history

In 2007, the Prague Writers’ Festival celebrates its seventeenth anniversary.

The Festival is one of Europe’s leading cultural events, through its unique mix of world-class authors, international media coverage and live broadcasts on the internet.  The Festival is co-sponsored by the City of Prague and the Guardian, which presents the Festival through its book pages:  www.guardian.co.uk/books

History:

The Festival dates from Keats House, London 1980, when with “Index on Censorship” through the Helsinki Accords we brought vital authors from Central and Eastern Europe to the attention of the public. As Herzen noted: “Fish were born to fly, yet everywhere they swim.”  Fortunately in 1991, we could fly east and bring outstanding authors to Prague. In 1997, the Festival became a Czech cultural foundation.

The doors were opened and have remained open at the Viola Theatre, Franz Kafka Centre, the Celetná Theatre, Studio Ypsilon, and the Theatre Minor where the Festival has encamped over the years – where Prague has witnessed great writers and the art of literature: Michal Ajvaz, David Albahari, Marigo Alexopoulou, Fernando Pinto do Amaral, Martin Amis, Ferenc Kovács András, Homero Aridjis, António Franco Alexandre, Benny Andersen, Aharon Appelfeld, Margaret Atwood, Biyi Bandele, John Banville, Jim Barnes, Julian Barnes, Alexandra Berková, Ivan Binar, Robert Bly, Yves Bonnefoy, Petr Borkovec, André du Bouchet, Vlasta Brtníková, Ernest Bryll, John Calder, Roberto Calasso, Isobelle Carmody, Orly Castel-Bloom, Brian Castro, Erik Clemens, Giuseppe Conte, Robert Creeley, Gastao Cruz, Veroniki Dalakoura, Bei Dao, John Deane, Peter Demetz, Eva Demski, Albert Dichy, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Mircea Dinescu, E.L. Doctorow, Duo Duo, Paul Durcan, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Victor Erofeyev,  Péter Esterházy, Per Olov Enquist, Jeffrey Eugenides, Lilian Faschinger, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Dominique Fernandez, Sylva Fischerová, Viola Fischerová, Isabel Fonseca, Richard Ford, Antonia Fraser, Katarina Frostenson, Rhea Galanaki, Janice Galloway, Nadine Gordimer, David Grossman, Arnon Grunberg, Jiří Gruša, Norbert Gstrein, Manuel Gusmao, Erich Hackl, Miklós Haraszti, Martin Harrison, Ana Hatherly, Míla Haugová, Dermot Healy, Aleksandar Hemon, Daniela Hodrová, Michael Hofmann,  Alan Hollinghurst, Miroslav Holub, Janette Turner Hospital, Michel Houellebecq, Dimitris Houliarakis, Bohumil Hrabal, Peter Huemer, Robert Irwin, Václav Jamek, Zoë Jenny, Ján Johanides, Roland Jooris, Lidia Jorge, Gabriel Josipovici, Nuno Júdice, Peter Stephan Jungk, Milan Jungmann, Eva Kantůrková, Josef Kroutvor, Vladimír Křivánek, Panos Karnezis, James Kelman, Etgar Keret, Tadeusz Konwicki, Ryszard Krynicki, György Konrád, Menis Koumandareas, Demosthenes Kourtovik, Hanna Krall, Eda Kriseová, Agota Kristof,  Jiří Kubéna, Ludvík Kundera, Werner Lambersy, Irving Layton, Gérald Leblanc, Savyon Liebrecht, Antonín Liehm, Elmore Leonard, Christopher Logue, Arnošt Lustig, Zbigniew Machej, Age Madsen, Claudio Magris, Bronisław Maj, Patrick McCabe, Ian McEwan, David Malouf, Norman Manea, Dacia Maraini, Michael March, Dante Marianacci, Juan Marsé, Yann Martel, James Meek, Robert Menasse, Anne Michaels,  Amanda Michalopoulos, Dušan Mitana, Anna Mitgutsch, Frank Moorhouse, Sławomir Mrożek, Herta Müller, Yi Mun-yol, Ewald Murrer, Adolf Muschg, Lajos Parti Nagy, James Naughton, Ondřej Neff, Josef Nesvadba, Lyubomir Nikolov, Dimitris Nollas, Edna O'Brien, Timothy O´Grady, Amos Oz, Nikos Panayotopoulos, Vladimír Páral, Donald Parenzee, Brian Patten, Karel Pecka, Erica Pedretti, György Petri, Jerzy Pilch, Harold Pinter, Igor Pomerantsev, Věra Prokešová, Zsuzsa Rakovszky, Niklas Rådström, Ishmael Reed, Elisabeth Reichart, Sylvie Richterová, Svend Klaus Rifbjerg, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Peter Rosei, Daniel de Roulet, Arundhati Roy, Paul-Eerik Rummo, Eva Runefelt, Salman Rushdie, Pavel Řezníček, Zdena Salivarová, Ed Sanders, Tom Sandqvist, José Saramago, Evelyn Schlag, Peter Schneider, Raoul Schrott, Ingo Schulze, W.G. Sebald, Gary Snyder, Susan Sontag, Marin Sorescu, Andrzej Sosnowski, Ersi Sotiropoulos, Márcio Souza, Božena Správcová, Andrzej Stasiuk, Gary Shteyngart, Elena Stefoi, Robert Stone, Odillo Stradický, William Styron, Andrzej Szsczypiorski, Martin M. Šimečka, Josef Škvorecký, Jana Štroblová, Pedro Tamen, Petros Tatsopoulos, Paulo Teixeira, Serge Patrice Thibodeau, D.M. Thomas, R.S. Thomas, Colm Tólbín, Jindřich Toman, Miloslav Topinka, Jáchym Topol, Josef Topol, Günter Traxler, Abdullah al-Udhari, Ko Un, Ludvík Vaculík, Vassilis Vassilikos, Spiros Vergos, Gore Vidal, Michal Viewegh, Pavel Vilikovský, William T. Vollmann, Jorge Volpi, Martin Vopěnka, Irvine Welsh, Zoë Wicomb, A. B. Yehoshua, Gōzō & Marilya Yoshimasu, Hugo Young, Gary Younge, Natan Zach, Zinovy Zinik, Rui Zink.