Archive: Culture | Literature

The 8th International Book Fair opened at Prague's Vystaviste exhibition grounds on Thursday, giving close to 500 exhibitors from 28 countries the chance to present their latest publications. Dita Asiedu was at the opening.

Those of you still grappling with the mysteries of Czech grammar will be pleased to hear that Rob Cameron's guest on this week's One on One - the translator Jim Naughton - has also been through the same agonising process. Born in 1950 in Edinburgh, Jim studied Czech and Russian at Cambridge University, gaining his doctorate in 1978. Now a lecturer on Czech language and literature at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at Oxford, he's best known as the author of the popular language book "Colloquial Czech." Join Jim Naughton in conversation

What you've just heard was the announcing of the book of the year award - the main category of the brand new "Magnesia Litera" Awards for best works of literature, presented for the first time on Saturday. Radio Prague's Pavla Horakova was a member of the jury and she joins me now in the studio.

Every year on November 16th culturally minded Czechs mark the birthday of the celebrated Czech Romantic poet Karel Hynek Macha, who was born in 1810. Macha's poem "May" is considered the greatest piece of verse written during the Romantic period in Bohemia. And November 16th also marked National Poetry Day in the CzechRepublic. By .

Czech literature at the end of the millennium. All this week that's a subject that's preoccupying 150 experts on Czech literature from as far afield as Canada, Egypt and South Korea, who have all gathered in Prague. The Czech Republic may be small but it has an incredibly rich literary tradition, reflected in the sheer number of people who have come for the congress. The Czech Republic's recent history gives the congress a special edge. It is only the second time that experts on Czech literature have been able to come together here in the Czech capital. Until the fall of communism the academic world was divided into East and West - all conferences held here were burdened by a huge amount of ideological baggage. So the congress offers a fascinating meeting of ideas, reappraising both the classics and contemporary authors. Radio Prague's spoke with one of the participants, Rajendra Chitnis, who teaches Czech and Russian at the University of Bristol in Britain. He began by asking him whether there is a lot of interest in Czech writing in the English-speaking world.