Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100Mon, 27 Jul 2026 22:45:45 +0200https://english.radio.cz/second-exile-a-true-story-communist-czechoslovakia-poetry-and-prose-8550836© 2026 Radio Prague International Born in 1946, Aleš Macháček, has been through experiences that it is hard for people from the west to imagine. In 1977 he was sentenced to three years in prison for helping to distribute books and periodicals that were banned by the regime in Czechoslovakia, and in 1985 he was bullied into exile in London, as part of a secret police campaign to get rid of troublesome dissidents. That was where he met his partner, Jane Kirwan. Today they live in Prague, in a flat above an old cinema built by Aleš’s grandparents nearly a century ago. All this has provided inspiration for an unusual and moving book, “Second Exile”, in which Aleš tells his story, interspersed with Jane’s poems responding to events in Aleš’s life, his family’s history and their shared life. David Vaughan reports. encr@radio.cz (Cesky Rozhlas)webmaster@radio.cz (CRo Webmaster) https://english.radio.cz/sites/default/files/images/4f5197446b1f6808606b2a0aab5e5a67.png?timestamp=1583150525 https://english.radio.cz/second-exile-a-true-story-communist-czechoslovakia-poetry-and-prose-8550836 Radio Prague International Radio Prague International radio.prague.int@gmail.com clean 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9