Pavel Kohout

Who is Pavel Kohout?

Pavel Kohout is a Czech and Austrian novelist, playwright, and poet. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, a Prague Spring exponent and dissident in the 1970s until he was expelled to Austria. He was a founding member of the Charter 77 movement.

Because he and other dissident theater workers had been banned from working in the official theater, he formed the company Living-Room Theater with the actors Pavel Landovský, Vlasta Chramostová, Vlastimil Třešňák, and his daughter, Tereza Boučková to covertly perform an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth in living rooms in Prague. Czech-born UK playwright Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth is inspired by these events.

His most notable play is the drama Poor Murderer, that opened on Broadway in Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 1976. It is based on the short story "Thought" by Leonid Andreyev.

His novels include White Book, I Am Snowing, The Widow Killer, and The Hangwoman.