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Last week of May, Tomas Venclova, a prominent Lithuanian poet, intellectual, publicist, a literary scholar, Yale University professor and a famous dissident during soviet times in Lithuania, comes to Prague.

May 28, 7 pm., the Valcav Havel Library in Prague, Řetězová 7, will hold Venclova’s meeting with the public. The event will also see an introduction of a collection of Venclova’s poetry, “Čas rozpůlil se.../Įpusėja para...“, translated into Czech almost 20 years ago by a known translator Alena Vlčková and Jaroslav Kabíček, and now made accessible to the readers by the publishing house Venkovské Dílo. In the discussion Venclova will reflect on the topics relevant today, not only as a poet, intellectual, and a citizen of the world, but also a Central European, which he has always considered himself to be.

The meeting will be hosted by an acclaimed Czech writer Jáchym Topol, and will be held in English language with a translation to Czech.

Professor Venclova was born in 1937 in Klaipeda, Lithuania. At the Vilnius University he completed studies in Lithuanian philology. In the 80’s he was actively participating in the Lithuanian dissident movement; was one of the founders of the Lithuanian Helsinki group. In 1977 he immigrated to the US, and therefore was accused for “actions incompatible with the USSR citizen” and deprived of his citizenship by the communist regime. After receiving political asylum in the US, he worked at various American universities. In 1985, he was awarded Ph.D. at the University of Yale, where he lectured and continued to pursue his creative aspirations.

Similarly to his like-minded friends Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky, Venclova, a Lithuanian poet in exile, has been widely appraised internationally. He has also translated an extensive list of authors, including works by Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Joseph Brodsky, T.S. Elliot, Osip Mandelstam, Dylan Thomas, and Alfred Jarry.

 Today, Tomas Venclova lives and works in New Haven, US, and is active in the political and cultural discourse in Lithuania. He was granted Capri Award (Italy, 1991), Tolerance of the Year Award (Lithuania, 2010), Golden Tibetan Antelope Award (Qinghai Lake, China, 2011), Petrarca Award (Germany, 2014), also Vilenica Prize (Slovenia, 1990), National Prize of Lithuania (2000), Baltic Star Prize (Russia, 2008), New Culture of Europe Prize (2005) and many others. Venclova holds honorary doctorates of Cracow, Gdansk, Kaunas universities.

The first translations of Venclova to the Czech language are closely related to his private visits to Prague in June of 1990, which happened shortly after the fall of communism in Central Europe, but still before the collapse of the USSR. At the time, in Czechoslovakia, there were only a handful of people who attempted to introduce Venclova not only as a Lithuanian dissident, but also as an essayist and poet. Amongst them were translator Alena Vlčková and her colleague Jaroslav Kabíček. Immediately after Venclova’s  visit to Prague they drafted a number of articles, and arranged the publications of a collection of his poems in literary journals Tvar and Souvislosti, but a release of his book at the time did not happen. After the passing of Alena Vlčková, fortunately all the preparatory materials for the collection of Venclova’s poetry in 1995 was inherited by her student Věra Kociánova who was determined that her teacher’s work saw the light of day.

Venclova’s visit to Prague is organized by the Embassy of Lithuania to the Czech Republic in cooperation with publishing house Venkovské dílo, the Vaclav Havel Library and the Polish Institute. The visit is supported by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania.