Books: Prague's Indomitable Spirit

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A remarkable, obscure Czech poet wins the Nobel Prize

How did last week's announcement of the Nobel Prize strike some of the celebrated writers who might like to win it themselves? Nobody knows, of course, but perhaps there was an outcry of bewildered protests like this:

"Who?" shouts Norman Mailer (and probably Graham Greene as well).

"Chi?" wonders Alberto Moravia (and perhaps Italo Calvino).

"Wer?" grumbles Gunter Grass (and possibly Peter Handke).

"iQuien?" inquires Jorge Luis Borges (and maybe Carlos Fuentes).

Some such chorus of international wonderment would have been quite understandable, for once again the Swedish Academy had awarded the world's most prestigious literary prize (now worth $190,000) to a man virtually unknown outside his own country. He is Czech Poet Jaroslav Seifert, 83. Only two of Seifert's 30 volumes of poetry are currently in print in the U.S., one published by a Czechoslovak society in New York City, the other by The Spirit That Moves Us Press of Iowa City, Iowa.

Seifert heard the news of the award in Prague's Vinohrady Hospital, where he had been admitted the previous week for treatment of a heart ailment and diabetes. Swedish Ambassador Olof Skoglund came to his bedside and presented him with the academy's statement honoring him "for his poetry, which, endowed with freshness, sensuality and rich inventiveness, provides a liberating image of the indomitable spirit and versatility of man." To the press afterward, Skoglund added, "He was overwhelmed. But I could see he was very tired."

Death will soon kick open the door

and enter.

With startled terror at that minute

I'll catch my breath

and forget to breathe again . . .

The Swedish Academy never discusses its mysterious decisions-and some of its recent choices have been almost equally obscure-so critics immediately speculated on the political implications in the choice of Seifert. Was the academy pointedly honoring a man for having spoken out against Communist censorship and harassment of intellectuals in Eastern Europe? Or was it avoiding the selection of more celebrated and more militant Czech dissidents, notably the exiled Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) and Playwright Vaclav Havel (A Private View)?

Perhaps ambiguity was quite appropriate here, for Seifert is a man who has opposed both Nazism and Communism in the past, and yet is now tolerated by the Communist regime. Says Emigré Czech Novelist Josef Skvorecky (The Engineer of Human Souls): "He is a poet of the people. The government hates him, but he is so revered, so old and ill; he is too famous to be touched." And if the poet laureate of

Prague was gazing out of all her

windows,

smiling happily

at herself. . .