1968 was a different deal, a time of revolution and turmoil, of people fighting in the streets. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were gunned down in the United States, students occupied the Sorbonne in France and Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Prague.
It was a lot to digest at one time, and four decades later it still seems overwhelming. But the intervening years should lend some insight and perspective, and what better place to ponder it all than the 18th annual Prague Writers’ Festival?
“1968 was a moment of recognition, when people throughout the world realized what needed to be changed in society,” says PWF President Michael March. “It was a rebellion against oppressive bureaucracies from all points along the political spectrum. We want to look back and consider things that were lost and things never gained.”
That in itself is a flash point of departure, as the legacy of the ’60s is still a matter of some controversy. Was it a lot of noise and tumult that, in the end, didn’t really accomplish anything? Were the promises of political and sexual freedom all empty? Or is it possible to trace the advances in, for example, racial equality and women’s rights back to the ideological sea change of the ’60s?
No doubt all these matters and many more will arise in the five lively days of readings and discussions the festival has scheduled this year. Along with attracting the usual cadre of big literary names, March has done a great job of assembling writers who can consider the era from a broad range of geographical vantage points.
The opening night (June 1) features a stellar cross-cultural panel: the remarkable Canadian author Margaret Atwood, American novelist Paul Auster and beat poet and playwright Michael McClure, and Czech poet and essayist Petr Král. Their open-ended discussion on 1968 will be sandwiched between ceremonial opening remarks and a Freedom of Expression award presentation to Russian poet and political activist Natalia Gorbanevskaya.
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