Wednesday: Up at 9.After a quick shower and shave, go down for breakfast. See Siri and Paul. Back to my room and get a call from Steve Gove. He is the founder and director of the Prague Fringe Festival. He asks if it is a good moment to come for morning coffee. Tell him to meet me in the lobby of the Hotel Josef about 11. Quickly down for another coffee. Slavenka Drakilic sits with Tariq Ali and another man a few tables away and we exchange waves. Go afterwards to check my email and I have a message from Jim Campbell in London. He recently had a piece in the Guardian about visiting Gore Vidal in L.A. There is also a message from Phyllis Roome in Paris. She will cook next Sunday's dinner. Hannah and Guillaume are in the computer room planning the transportation schedule for today. They depart and I open the Tuesday blog. A fellow enters and we chat briefly. He is from Tel-Aviv and is in Prague on a business trip. Something to do with computers. His name is Shraga Katz. We discuss Dahn Ben-Amotz and Amos Oz. Tell him that Dahn and I were friends from the 60s and that I have met Amos Oz in Edinburgh and Paris.
Back up to my room and Steve calls again to say he will be fifteen minutes late. Not a problem. After a bit, go downstairs to the lobby. And Steve appears. We both have cappuccinos. I ask him to call Eva Kacerova on his mobile phone and she and I chat. She reports not feeling 100% OK. In fact, she is in her bed. I tell her that I am a Consultant to the Director of the Calcutta Film Festival and need to talk with her about Czech cinema. Melina comes over to the table and I ask her to join us. She remembers meeting Steve before. We three chat about a lot of things including the Prague Writers' Festival, the Fringe Festival, the Josef and Maximilian Hotels.Steve calls a taxi to take us to the Café Savoy where we are to meet his mum, Carol, and a number of his associates who help run the Prague Fringe Festival. As we speed across to the other side of the river, he points out various spaces where theatre companies performed. Steve calls the Canadian Ambassador, Michael Calcott and after they have had a brief talk, the phone is passed to me and I tell him how much I enjoyed his party on Sunday night and how kind it was to invite the entire theatre audience to join in the fun. Later I ask Steve about Michael McEvoy and his one-man show, Not in My Name! - The Trial of Niccolo Machiavelli, and he says that many people reported liking his performance. I was the one who suggested to Michael to contact Steve. We arrive at the Savoy and I am introduced to Frankie Pearson (who soon will be moving to Moscow with the British Foreign Office), Ania Gebeka (who is not sure if she will be back here in Prague with the British Embassy and the Czech Foreign Office) and Carol, Steve's mum (who I first met in Edinburgh during a Festival some years ago). Then a woman named Vanessa Welsby (a graphic designer who designed the Prague Fringe Festival booklet) joins us followed by Giles Burton (the technical director of the Fringe Festival). Lunch seems to be excellent from the happy smiles on everyone's faces. Because of my Hotel Josef breakfast feast, I am not hungry. But order a bowl of lentil soup just to be polite.
I want to go to the Big Ben Bookshop for the 2pm signings. Ask Steve to call a taxi for me. Steve does and one will pick me up in ten minutes. Steve flies to Edinburgh tomorrow for two nights and will be back in Paris on Saturday. As soon as I have embraced Steve (and he has reminded me that he comes to visit in July), speed toward the Big Ben Bookshop in the softly falling rain. There will be a number of signings. I always want to support small independent booksellers, so purchase a small pile of books. They have sold out of all books by Siri Hustvedt, so purchase books by Tariq Ali, Conversations with Tariq Ali, speaking of empire and resistance and Slavenka Drakilic, Café Europa - Life After Communism. Talk with a journalist named Rosamund Johnston who is from Fife just across the Forth Bridge from Edinburgh, but currently living in Prague and reporting for Radio Prague (English section). Tell her that I lived ten years in Edinburgh and that I never miss an Edinburgh Festival. There is also a journalist in the shop from Iran who interviews Tariq Ali. I half jokingly wrote once that Tariq Ali should be the next Director General of the U.N. But maybe he would be wasted there. Maybe he should just continue to do what he is doing. Get Tariq and Slavenka to sign several books. Tell Siri that I will purchase her new novel when I am back in Paris. Slip out of the bookshop, and walk in the rain the short distance to Hotel Josef. (Discover that I have left the red jacket that Martin Lehberger gave me in the Savoy Café. Damn.)
Once safe and dry in the Josef, ask at the desk if Manfred Tobolka, the General Manager, is free for a minute. He comes out and I introduce myself. Tell him how much I appreciate the generosity of the hotel's support of the Prague Writers' Conference. Tell him that I think the hotel is delightful in every way. That he is doing a great job. He thanks me and says he hopes to see me back here in future years. I promise to come again. And to recommend to everyone going to Prague about the Hotel Josef.
Soon it is time to head for the Theatre Minor and Michael McClure's California Dreaming the Sixties. Mollye finds a festival car and we speed to the theatre. Sit upstairs and enjoy Michael's reading.
Then it is after 5pm and time for me to host Homero Aridjis and Igor Pomerantsev. It is a bizarre event, but in the end it is almost excellent. Homero reads first and then has to rush away to a television appointment. Igor and I have a brief exchange and then he reads in Russian and Frank Williams translates his poetry into superb English. Igor and I met at an Edinburgh Festival some years ago. He used to be with the BBC Russian Service. Of course he knows Jim Campbell, Alex Kan and Zinovy Zinik. Now both Igor and Frank live in Prague and broadcast with Radio Liberty. Afterwards, in the press room, congratulate Igor and Frank. Meet Stavros Petsopoulos, the director of Agra Publications in Athens. Learn that Stavros will fly to Paris on Friday.
At 20.00 hours another international series of readings. Tariq Ali produces a scene from a play he co-authored with Howard Brenton. Slavenka Drakulic reads from one of her books. And Günter Kunert surprises me with his extremely funny poetic writings about an old man.
Sit and have another coffee with Stanislava Simuniova, a young woman who organizes a program for young volunteers. She and I met at the same time last year. It's good to see her again. She introduces me to two young women, both volunteers from two cities in Germany.
Then we have a premier screening of a film entitled The Inner Life of Martin Frost, written and directed by Paul Auster. It's the end of a long and amazing day.

read the blog on the Prague Writers' Festival Website