Havel: "A major dramatist as well as a major politician."

It's interesting that Billington mentions the friendship of Havel with playwright Tom Stoppard without adding that Stoppard was born in Zlín, the Czech factory town of Bata shoes, and while a small boy, escaped with his family at the last possible moment before the Nazi occupation.

Václav Havel: a major dramatist as well as a major politician, by Michael Billington (Guardian)

Havel will be remembered as a courageous world leader – but we shouldn't forget his subversive satires of Czech communist life.