Thursday: Wake up early. Listen to the BBC World Service television. Robert Kennedy assassinated 40 years ago today. My old friend from Warsaw, Stash Pruszynski, was there and witnessed this tragedy. When will we ever learn the truth about who really did it and the other assassinations as well? Then turn it off and go back to sleep. Up again after 9. Climb out of bed, quickly wash and go downstairs for another breakfast feast. Spot Slavenka Drakulic in the lobby and apologize to her for missing our breakfast date. She suggests I join her now for a visit to the Museum of Communism. But breakfast calls. Thank her and walk the short distance to what is rapidly becoming one of my favorite rituals. I rarely eat anything in the mornings in Paris. But here in the Hotel Josef, all is so delicious that it is impossible not to indulge. Sit alone, but Guillaume Basset soon joins me. We discuss Paul Auster’s film and gossip a bit about the festival. I ask him if the attractive woman he left the theatre with last night might be Laure, his girlfriend. He says yes it was and that he will introduce us later tonight.
Back in the lobby, Tariq Ali is preparing to depart today for Copenhagen. I scribble a few words in the book White Washing Fences, and ask Guillaume to give it to Tariq when they meet later. (The book is a bit embarrassing because it is a warm homage to me written by some thirty writers and edited by Howard Aster of Mosaic Books in Toronto.) I have one more book that I brought from Paris. It is Throw a Great Party edited by Mary Bartlett, Antonia Hoogewerf, and Catherine Monnet. The subtitle is Inspired by evenings in Paris with Jim Haynes and contains all you need to know about how to give superb dinner parties. Based, of course, on thirty years of Sunday dinners in Paris in my atelier to which some 120,000 people have attended. I see Milena Findeis walking towards me, so she gets this copy. She and the Hotel Josef have been so supportive of the Prague Writers’ Festival.
Time for our lunch date at the American Ambassador’s residence. I share a taxi there with Michael March, Lara Woolstom from Amnesty International in London, and Helena Lambrou. Helena organizes a poetry festival on the Greek island of Skoplos the 21st and 22nd of June every year. We arrive and I have forgotten my invitation. But my name is on the list and I am allowed to enter. The Ambassador, Richard W. Graber, greets us. Thank him for extending hospitality to us all. He gives a brief talk about the history of the mansion and the family who had it built. We also learn how and when it was acquired by the American government. The residence is a large home situated in beautiful grounds. We are a fairly numerous group of people that includes the Swedish Ambassador, Catherine von Heidenstam. She always looks so lovely. Talk with the Cultural Attaché of the Embassy of Mexico, Antonio Lopez Rios, and am introduced to his wife. Thank him again for the delicious Mexican food served on Tuesday evening. He gives me an invitation to attend a concert tonight to hear the Trio Morelia. Tell him I would love to attend, but that I am not sure how the rest of the day will unfold. Meet also a woman named Suzanne Pastor who seems to be involved with graphics and book design. Talk as well with Michael McClure, with Hannah Brooks-Motl and with lots of other people. Vlasta introduces me to Zdenek Jicínský who was a close associate of Dubcek and the people around the “Prague Spring”. He and I chat briefly in French.
The lunch is delicious. Thank you, tax-payers of America.
In the ride into the city, talk with Josef Rauvolf, a journalist and translator. He has translated into Czech a number of writers including William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Selby Jr and William Blake. Behind us, on the back seat, sit Siri Hustvedt, Paul Auster, and Melina Findeis. Mention to Paul and Siri that I will see them the 13th and 14th of June in Paris when Shakespeare & Co and Sylvia Whitman host “real lives – exploring memoir and biography”, another literary festival.
Brief rest in Hotel Josef. Then we are in a taxi again for the American Center for a conversation between Paul Auster and Michael McClure with Paul Kahn acting as the moderator. The place is packed. I know most of what is discussed since I lived through the period but it is interesting to re-live those exciting times once again.
Afterwards about eight of us, (including Michael March, Dominique & Paul Kahn, Amy & Michael McClure, Paul Foster) dine in a Serbian restaurant called Gitanes. It is just down from the American Embassy in Trziste 7. Goran Bregovic’s music can be heard softly in the restaurant. (This, of course, makes me think of Maria Rankov and the time I traveled to Timisoara and Cluj to attend two Goran Bregovic concerts and to dine with him and Maria afterwards.)
Some people ride in an Embassy car to the Theatre Minor for the last international evening with Dimitris Nollas (from Greece), Petr Kral (Czech Republic) and Paul Auster (USA). A few others walk there. I jump on the #20 tram and ride there. When I exit the tram, chat with a lovely woman to make sure I am headed in the right direction and discover that Petra (from Most, Czech Republic) is also going to the theatre. We chat and walk there together.
And then it is over. Well, not entirely. There is a superb party at the Zofin Garden restaurant, a short walk from the theatre. Igor Pomerantsev asks me outside the theatre if I know the directions. I have asked Clare Wigfall to join me and I introduce her to Igor. Clare introduces me to a fellow from San Francisco (whose name I have forgotten) and we four strike out for the party. Igor and Clare in the lead and Clare’s friend and me very much in the rear. I walk much slower than I used to do.
I sit almost the entire time with Geraldine Sweeney and Stefan Pearson. Too tired to circulate. A few people pass to say goodbye. Rossano Maniscalchi gives me a copy of No Small Distance, one of his photographic books, and we discuss his having an exhibition in my private gallery. Martin Belk and Jonathan Pryce join us. Vlasta Brtnikova asks if I would like a ride to the Hotel Josef and I say this is a good idea. Look around to say my farewells, but they will have to wait until tomorrow. Or another day. It has been another fantastic week. Michael and Vlasta and their team have done a fantastic job.

read the blog on the Prague Writers' Festival Website