Prague’s link to global literature passes away: Poet Michael March dies at age 78
The Prague-based, American-born writer, poet and columnist Michael March died on February 23rd. His death was announced by his wife Vlasta. Mr. March had lived in Prague since 1996, and was the founder and president of the international Prague Writers' Festival, responsible for bringing many big names in the literary world to the Czech capital.
Born in New York in 1946, and later a graduate of Colombia University, life gradually led Michael March eastwards. He moved to London at the beginning of the 1970s, where he became the founder and director of the Covent Garden Readings literary festival. This brought him into close contact with writers from Central and Eastern Europe. In 1989, he presented the Child of Europe Readings at London's National Theatre, which featured poets from communist countries, and then was the editor of their work for a 1990 Penguin anthology. He also published English translations of Czech authors such as Bohumil Hrabal and Alexandra Berková. He was the founder of the East European Forum at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, opened by President Václav Havel.
As the Iron Curtain fell, Michael March was able to spend time in Prague. This allowed him to set up the prestigious Prague Writers' Festival in 1991. Held annually from that year through to 2020, the festival brought many literary leading lights to the city to give public readings, with several Noble Prize winners among them. The festival’s many guests included Harold Pinter in 1999, Margaret Atwood in 2008, and Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy in 2001. Mr. March spoke to Radio Prague International about the festival back in 2005, and commented on the fact that attending authors typically stayed in the city for several days:
“The whole point is that this is not a book-signing ceremony. It's not a commercial book fair. It's a social occasion, a very natural occasion, where writers come to spend a week in Prague to share their knowledge and experience and also to take something back, to take back their idea of Prague, to experience it. It can't be done in a commercial sense in one day, over an afternoon, over a cup of tea. It must be lived, a lived experience. That is really the essence, the slow gesticulation of culture, of nature, which is not only natural but the firmament of culture.”
Mr. March was a prolific writer himself, continuing to produce new verses right up to his final days. His poems were subsequently translated into numerous languages, including into Czech, German, Spanish, French, Arabic and Greek. Through his publications and his work for the literary festival, he breathed new life into Prague’s literary scene. He was a vital point of contact, bringing world literature to Czechia, and Czech literature to the world.
