David Vaughan

Karel Janovicky has had a distinguished career as a composer, pianist, writer and broadcaster, and at 77 is still full of energy. When I interviewed him in his study in…

You wouldn't usually associate music with mysterious arts of the alchemist, but in Prague, at the beginning of the 17th century, just about anything was possible. In…

Although she is still only 22, Natalie Kocabova already has two albums to her name as a singer, two collections of poetry and two published works of prose. She also has a…

Even if he had never written another work in his life, the Czech composer Oldrich Korte would deserve immortality for his Sonata for Piano. The piece was composed between…

This edition of Czech Books comes from a café just off the Old Town Square, where I have come to talk to a novelist who has become a phenomenon of the Czech literary scene…

Today the English College in Prague is one of several private secondary schools where pupils are taught in the English language. In this day and age, this is nothing…

One Christmas carol that doesn't hail from the Czech Republic is the one about Good King Wenceslas, although he is this country's patron Saint and ruled here in the 10th…

Usually in Czech Books we discuss poetry or prose, but for this week's programme we look at an intriguing book that fits neither category. Instead it is a collection of…

Students from a secondary school in Prague where almost all the pupils come from the Roma minority recited poetry, sang and even performed a jazz improvisation at a Prague…

We are in the middle of the huge and very modern Novy Smichov shopping complex, one of many that have sprung up in Prague and other Czech cities in recent years. This…