Monday: Another superb breakfast. Sit next to Michael McClure and Amy. They are deeply involved with today's Guardian. Paul Auster walks pass us and we exchange greetings.
Today I will seek help from PJ to get my Saturday's blog posted on the Prague Writers' Festival wet site. But first I will attend Michael March's Municipal Library conversation. It is entitled "Eyes to See Otherwise" and it is with Jiri Grusa and Homero Aridjis. Walk there via The Big Ben Bookshop. The conversation has started, but manage to catch most of it. It's a tender and intimate affair. Back to the Hotel Josef. Michael asks me to sign a few papers. Look up and see that Jim Rubenstein is standing next to us. He and I had a silly falling out some years ago in Paris. But I see no reason to continue it. We get in his car and drive to The Municipal House for an ice cream and an iced coffee. And a long catch-up conversation about his life, my life, our friends in common, Jack Henry Moore and Jim Naughton, summer plans, his current lady friend etc etc After a quick look around the concert hall and the Paris Hotel across the street, Jim drops me back at the Josef Hotel.
Begin a conversation with Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson and then PJ arrives. We go up to the wee computer room and are unable to find my Saturday report. Fortunately I printed out one copy. PJ suggests we go to the Festival office and he will scan the pages and I can make corrections and leave it with him to put up on the Festival web site. We walk back to the Paris Hotel and enter the metro at Republic Station. A short two stop ride and we are at the festival offices. PJ scans my pages and I start to make corrections. We finish about 16.45.
We walk the short distance to the Theatre Minor for the Guardian conversation, "1968: Czechoslovakia". This time I collect the head phones and am able to listen to the panelists: Ludvik Vaculik, Ivan Klima, Arnost Lustig, Antonin Liehm and Jiri Grusa with Jiri Pehe acting as the moderator. While on one level I can follow the conversation, on another level I am in the dark. I know so little about the panelists, their inter-personal relations, what really happened in Prague when the Russian tanks rolled in forty years ago. I have the feeling that this is an extremely important blood-letting. The theatre is packed. In fact I have never seen it so full. I manage to find a seat up front and next to a fellow named Miro Prochazka. He is a theatre director and lives in Bratislava. We exchange cards and talk about the session we have just witnessed.
Outside for some fresh air. See Adrana Pitesa and give her my Ljubljana newsletter. See also the Polish journalist from Gdansk, Sebastian Lupak. He and I have a long talk. I tell him that Jan Kaczmarek, who won an Oscar for his film-score for the film, Neverland, is an old friend of mine. (I think that was its title.) Also Ryszard Kapuscinski, who tragically died recently, is an old friend. I relate yet again the story of how I came to deliver a letter from Solidarnoc in Warsaw in late October 1981 to Vaclaw Havel in Prague.
Soon it is time for the evening session to start. Sebastian and I sit together. It is an international evening which starts with Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke. Gary Younge is the host, but he turns the position over briefly to Michael March who interviews Katerina. And then she reads some of her poetry in English. And one poem in Greek. Gary comes back to introduce Siri Hustvedt. They have a short dialogue and then she reads from her new novel, The Sorrows of an American. (The novel received a rave review in yesterday's London Observer.) The evening ends with Margaret Atwood. It is a superb climax. I will never forget her remark: "to be world famous in Canada" to mean, as she points out, not to be famous at all. She reads some short prose pieces then some of her poetry. What a talent.
Later I walk back to the Hotel Josef. A bunch of writers are sitting once again in the lobby. I choose to do some e-mail and note-taking. Then it is upstairs for an early night. It has been another superb day here in Prague. The Prague Writers' Festival is a warm and intimate occasion when and where a few writers, journalists, and the general public can meet and bond. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Vlasta.

read the blog on the Prague Writers' Festival Website