Jáchym Topol(*1962 Prague)

- poet, writer, journalist, program supervisor  of Václav Havel Library

 - cold war child, dissident, Charter 77 signatory, human rights activist, an engaged citizen

-  Egon Hostovsky and Jaroslav Seifert Prizes laureate

Leading Czech author of his generation. Famous in his youth as an underground poet and songwriter, today he is recognized as the writer whose work most successfully and imaginatively captures the jarring changes in Czech society since the end of communism in 1989.

Grandson of the writer Karel Schulz, son of the poet and dramatist Josef Topol and brother of the musician Filip Topol. Due to his father's refusal to join the Communist Party, Jáchym was barred from attending any university. He was jailed several times under the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, for publishing samizdat and for smuggling banned books and periodicals across the Polish border with members of Solidarity.

In 1994 his first novel Sestra (in English City Sister Silver) was published and has become a legend, further seven prose works followed, the most recent being Chladnou zemí (2009) – in English The Devil´s Workshop, winner of a 2013 English PEN Award for Writing in Translation.

Topol has spent most of his life as a journalist, writing for the weekly Respekt, which co-founded in 1990, and the daily Lidové noviny. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Prague, where he currently works as program supervisor for the Václav Havel Library.

„The existence of Czechs—or Czechoslovakia—was threatened under Soviet rule, it couldn’t be taken for granted, so it seemed normal to “get involved somehow,” to continue the tradition of resistance, like in the Czech National Revival, back in the 19th century, when they fought for the existence of the nation and the language. So sitting at home or in the pub writing poems wasn’t enough, I needed to write and distribute flyers, organize protests and so on —and of course write about things you weren’t allowed to write about, like for instance political prisoners or repression, which the regime wanted to hide.“

When: 18 November at 6pm

Where: Goethe Institut, 90 Ocean Street, Woollahra

Bookings essential:  konzulatsydney@gmail.com by 13th November 2014

Authors´ books in English will be available for sale