History
"The Prague Writers' Festival 2011 is an annual event with a long tradition, presenting the world of literature as a place of social and cultural dialogue. The Festival originated in late-seventies London, when Michael March (PWF‘s President) began organizing international poetry readings at Keats House. As allowed by the Helsinki Accords, writers from the former Soviet Bloc were invited to participate. Immediately following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the readings relocated to Prague, which was “a natural host and meeting place for writers.” Writers from various countries are invited to Prague as some kind of crossroad between East and West to present their work and their culture to an international audience in the form of discussions and readings. The first Prague Writers’ Festival took place at Valdštejn Palac in May 1991 and was themed “Wedding Preparations in the Country.” Over the next twenty years, Prague Writers‘ Festival became increasingly more an essential event in Prague‘s cultural scene. Now, it is "one of the most engaging cultural events in Prague and one of the most notable literary events in Europe."
- Themes 1991-2012
- 2012 - Only the Future Exists
- 2011 - Some Like It Hot
- 2010 - Heresy and Rebellion
- 2009 - 2001 Nights: The Art of Storytelling
- 2008 - Laughter and Forgetting
- 2007 - Dada East
- 2006 - dedicated to Arthur Miller: "There is no life without ideals."
- 2005 - dedicated to Giacomo Casanova: "Our ignorance becomes our sole recource"
- 2004 - dedicated to Joseph Roth: "I don't know where I'm going."
- 2003 - dedicated to William S. Burroughs: "We dont report the news. We write it."
- 2002 - dedicated to Jean Genet
- 2001 - dedicated to Primo Levi: "If Not Now, When?"
- 2000 - dedicated to Jaroslav Seifert
- 1999 - dedicated to Vladimir Holan
- 1998 - dedicated to Bohumil Hrabal
- 1997 - dedicated to Samuel Beckett
- 1996 - Ancient evenings
- 1993 - 1995 - without theme
- 1992 - Paradise lost
- 1991 - Wedding Preparations in the Country
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