Lost and Found

Lost and Found: Hidden Notes on My First Incarceration is a unique account of the dramatic events that shaped the history of Czechoslovakia and influenced the life of Václav Havel. This book offers an exclusive insight into the communist regime and Havel’s decision to stand up to it through Charter 77.

In the fall of 1977, Václav Havel wrote a report chronicling his first days following the Charter 77 Declaration, the subsequent investigation, his four-month detention, and a difficult period of self-reflection following his release. He hid the report with a friend and it wasn’t rediscovered until after his death. Fragmentary yet strikingly immediate, the text has been reconstructed and published by the Václav Havel Library, with the English translation appearing on the occasion of the world-renowned intellectual’s ninetieth birthday.