Letters to Olga
Written from prison under rules forbidding humour, foreign words and corrections, and within those constraints Havel built a sustained philosophy of responsibility and being.
Havel was serving four years for subversion when he wrote these weekly letters to his wife, the only writing the prison permitted him. The censors rules were absurd and total, and he worked inside them until the constraint became a method, producing a sustained enquiry into responsibility, identity and what it means to live in truth.
Recommended by 1 Person
Maria Popova
That is what the great Czech playwright, essayist, and poet Václav Havel (October 5, 1936–December 18, 2011) explores in an extraordinary feat of soul-searching and reckoning with the human condition, found in his Letters to Olga (public library), one of the most moving books I have ever read
As an Amazon Associate, bookstoread.org earns from qualifying purchases. Links to Amazon on this page may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. Spotted an error on this page? Tell us and we will fix it.