Beware of pure concepts
Prague Writers' Festival, J Haynes' blog, 9 May 2007

In late October 1981, I made by first visit to Prague. While attending the Warsaw “Jazz Jamboree”, some friends connected with Solidarity asked if a letter could be taken to Václav Havel. We agreed to the undertaking and headed South in a car to Kraków and crossed the frontier into Czechoslovakia and on to Olomouc. Two days later we arrived at an address in Prague. Only to be informed by Ivan Havel that his brother was in prison, but that he would accept the letter.

This was the first of many trips from my home in Paris to countries in the East. These trips enabled me to create a series of Guide Books that were later published in Great Britain and the USA under the name People to People. In the end, five were published to include ten Eastern European countries and Russia. They were unlike any guide book ever created because they contained no information that one normally finds. Instead, there were 1000 short bios of people open and ready to meet travelers. Tourists go to see things (monuments, museums, etc) and travelers go to participate in the daily life of the local population. My books were an attempt to transform tourists into travelers. And from the hundreds of letters I received over the years from people in the books and from people who used the books, our aim was achieved.

Then in the Spring of 2002, Michael March and Vlasta Brtniková invited me to participate in the Prague Writers’ Festival. I accepted with great excitement.

On April the 20th a Czech Airlines flight takes me from Paris to Prague. An American writer, William T. Vollmann, is on the same flight. Michael March mets us at the airport and welcomes us to Prague. William and I share a ride to our hotel in Dlouhá Street, a street where Kafka once lived.

After we have checked-in, go back to the lobby and find that old friends, John Calder and Christopher Logue, have just arrived from London. Also see Vlasta Brtniková and she greets me with a radiant smile. And to my pleasant surprise, see another friend, Mylène Sylvestre. She is with The Guardian, a newspaper I have been reading since 1956, and which is one of the main sponsors of the festival. I have even written a few articles for the paper over the years. She introduces me to Gary Younge, who writes a column for The Guardian. Learn that Gary and I both attended Edinburgh University.

Michael March announces that we are expected now at the Hall of Mirrors and he leads the way. I walk with Christopher Logue. It’s a short walk and we soon arrive. An impressive room. A part of the National Library that dates from the 17th century. We get speeches of welcome from Michael March, from Vojtech Balík, the Director of the National Library, from Miroslav Kula, the president of Czech Airlines. Mylène says a few words on behalf of The Guardian. Snacks and drinks flow. People mingle. Vlasta introduces me to a Marina from St. Petersburg and she and I exchange words in French. Talk with Elmore Leonard and meet his attractive wife, Christine. Sit a while with John Calder. He is one of my oldest friends. We met in 1959 when he traveled North to Edinburgh to sell his books to me. I had just opened the first all paperback bookshop in Great Britain next to Edinburgh University. Later we meet Ivana Bozdechová, a very attractive Assistant Professor of Czech Literature and Language at Charles University. She has also translated a number of Irish writers into Czech. Ivana introduces us to Jim Naughton, who is a Professor of Czech Literature and Language at Oxford University as well as a translator of Czech literature into English. Ivana tells us about Caffrey’s, an Irish pub, whose proprietor, Frank Haughton, is supportive of literary projects. John and I suggest we visit the pub after the reception. Somehow in all the confusion, John and I make our way to an Italian restaurant where we have an excellent meal.

The next morning at breakfast there are lots of more meetings. I sit with a writer from South Korea, Ko Un, and his wife. Afterwards John Calder and I go for a stroll in the bright morning sunshine. He wants to purchase a Czech/English dictionary. We find a small bookshop and John is successful. John is a member of the Kafka Prize jury for a second year. Last year the jury met in the Milena Café, so John suggests we go there for a light lunch. Later Michael March tells us the café is named after Kafka’s last woman in his life.

Back at the hotel, Michael introduces us to Rossano Maniscalchi, the official photographer of the festival. He has a new book entitled Second Thoughts. It contains photographs of writers who have attended the festival over the past twelve years.

We all walk the short distance to the Mayor’s residence. Stroll with Mylène. We collect John Calder on the way. One of the first people I see is the Czech writer, Ivan Klíma. He and I have met at the “Lahti Writers’ Reunion” and at the Edinburgh Writers’ Festival. Then see my favorite assistant professor, Ivana Bozdechová. The mayor Jan Kasl welcomes us to Prague and hopes we all have a great week at the conference. John Calder and I sit in another room and wonder how many people from all over the world have sat in these extremely comfortable chairs.

This year’s festival is dedicated to Jean Genet. Tonight we have a one-woman performance of Genet’s Prisoner of Love. Lara Bruhl has brought the production from Paris. It is a moving and an excellent start to the festival. Another reception afterwards. More talk.

It is a superb five days. Meet so many people it is difficult to remember them all. But I do remember Alain Robbe-Grillet, Duo Duo (from China but lives in Holland), Spiros Vergos (a poet from Greece). Homero Aridjis (a poet from Mexico), Ersi Sotiropoulos (a novelist from Athens), Jirí Grusa (a Czech writer), an attractive woman named Milena Findeis (who tells me she is the assistant manager of the Hotel Josef), and meet Ivan Havel again. Ivan and his wife, Dagmar Havlová, host a small dinner party in their superb restaurant, Cerný kun. I tell him that we met way back in October 1981 when I delivered a letter to him for his brother from Solidarity.

My next visit to Prague was in November 2003 with Susi Wyss and John Flattau. We stay in the Hotel Josef – thanks to Milena. It is another fabulous trip.