Letters from Prison
Published on 1. January 1990
Book
Paperback/Softback
172 pages
978-80-86264-03-5 (ISBN)
Description
Cultural Writing. Translation. Translated from the Czech and Slovak by Gerald Turner. Foreword by Vaclav Havel. The letters printed in this volume were written during Milan Simecka's stay in prison (the author's crime: smuggling his texts out of the country to be published abroad.) Not allowed to mention politics, Simecka--one of the most widely translated dissidents opposing the Communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia--wrote instead about people and human relations. The selection presented here contains philosophical reflections as well as practical advice for his wife and sons, bearing witness to both his attitude towards others and to the period in which he lived. Similar to Vaclav Havel's Letters to Olga, Simecka's LETTERS FROM PRISON give us a glimpse into the difficult struggle undertaken by Czechoslovak dissidents in opposition to a Soviet-style regime that was considered the most hard-line in Eastern Europe.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Prague
Czech Republic
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
with flaps
Dimensions
Height: 205 mm
Width: 146 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
236 gr
ISBN-13
978-80-86264-03-5 (9788086264035)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Milan Simečka was born in 1930 in the Czech town of Nový Bohumín. Orphaned by the war, he attended university in Brno on a state stipendium, studying Russian and Czech literature. He moved to Bratislava in 1954 where he taught at the university and then the School of Performing Arts. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Simecka was dismissed from the university and thrown out of the party. His life became devoted to dissident activities and trying to maintain an independent culture. During the years of Soviet occupation Simečka was prolific in having his articles and essays translated and published abroad, and it was for this that he was jailed in 1981-82. After the revolution in 1989 and Václav Havel's assuming the presidency, Simečka was appointed advisor to the president on Czech-Slovak relations, heading the team of presidential advisors. He remained at this post until his death in September, 1990.