Pavel Kohout

Novelist

Czech Republic/Austria

Pavel Kohout is a novelist, playwright, and poet. He was initially a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, but later became a dissident and a supporter of Prague Spring during the 1970s, until he was expelled to Austria. He was a founding member of the Charter 77 movement. His novels include White Book, an absurdist picture of life under Communism and I Am Snowing, a post-Communism story about the corrosive effect of the Communist regime.