Václav Havel, the scion of a notable Prague family dedicated to public service, claimed to want a quiet life devoted to writing. He lived, however, exactly the opposite. As the most famous dissident in Czechoslovakia under Communist rule, he spent many years in jail as a political prisoner and, after leading a revolutionary movement in 1989, served thirteen years as president and twenty as one of the most respected intellectuals on the world stage. This biography is the first to pay close attention to Havel's poetry, and to place his later work as a writer of plays, prison letters and presidential speeches in the context of his poetic beginnings. Kieran Williams also connects Havel's most well-known plays to his development as a writer of profound essays, which focused on the arts, his country's social and political predicament and the modern condition. Through a reading of Havel's complete works in Czech, including first drafts of his plays and his voluminous correspondence, Williams produces an intricate portrait of a man of courage and paradoxes. -- from back cover.