Vaclav Havel: The Authorized Biography
by Eda Kriseová
Category: Czechoslovakia

Vaclav Havel, the playwright, essayist, dissident who led Czechoslovakia back to democracy and became its president, is one of the most admired men of our time. He stands for values not often found in world politics - courtesy, good taste, intelligence, decency, and, above all, responsibility. But who is this man, and how did he come to think and believe as he does, what formed him, how did he come to play such a pivotal role in his country? For the first time, in this personal and often touching portrait, Eda Kriseova, a longtime colleague and confidante, tells Havel's life story in its entirety. Havel was born and raised in the spirit of the first Czech Republic, the era between the two world wars that was a period of growth, both as a sophisticated economy and a democracy in which many political philosophies flourished. One grandfather was a diplomat with a visionary plan for Central European cooperation. The other was an urban developer pivotal in building Prague into a modern world capital. Because of his upbringing, Havel was never swayed by communism - he was a political renegade from the very beginning. Kriseova describes Havel's political baptism, when he addressed a congress of the writers union in the early sixties and attacked their values, his career as a playwright, and, after the Prague Spring is crushed in 1968 by Soviet tanks and his writing is banned, his emergence as a dissident. His role in Charter 77, the years in prison, the years out of prison but under house arrest, constantly harassed, are an eye opening look at what it was like in Czechoslovakia under communism. The days of the Velvet Revolution and those that led to it are depicted vividly - we share in the euphoria Czechoslovakia felt as it became a free country again. Kriseova has told Havel's story with the help of his family and closest friends. Their contributions, especially those of film director Milos Forman and the actor Pavel Landovsky, help create a portrait that is at the same time flattering and rings with honesty.