SOURCE: "Light on a Landscape," translated by Milan Pomichalek and Anna Mozga, in The Vaněk Plays: Four Authors, One Character, edited by Marketa Goetz-Stan-kiewicz, Vancouver: UBC Press, 1987, pp. 237-39.

In the following essay, which was written in 1985, Havel discusses the experience of having other authors utilize his character Vaněk and coins the term "Vaněk principle" to describe the phenomenon.

In the 1970's it was customary (and a good custom it was) for several of my writer-friends to spend one summer weekend with me in my country cottage every year. After 1969 they all had found themselves in a situation similar to mine; that is to say, they were banned in their native country and publicly disgraced for their beliefs concerning society. At these gatherings we used to, among other things, read our new works to each other. In the course of about two days before our...