About this item
Since its foundation in the ninth century Prague has punched way above its weight to become a fulcrum of European culture. The city's most illustrious figures in the fields of music, literature and film are well known: Mozart staged the premiere of his opera Don Giovanni here; in the early twentieth century Franz Kafka was at the forefront of the city's intellectual life, while later writers such as Milan Kundera and film directors such as Milos Forman chronicled Prague's fortunes under communism. Yet the city has a cultural heritage that runs far deeper than Kafka museums and Mozart-by-candlelight concerts. It encompasses the avant-garde punk group Plastic People of the Universe, the "new wave" film directors of the 1960s who made their striking movies in the city's famed Barrandov studios, and artists such as Alfons Mucha and Frantisek Kupka whose revolutionary canvases fomented Art Nouveau and abstract art at the dawn of the twentieth century.
About the Author
Andrew Beattie is an author working in two separate fields - books on travel, history and the environment, and stage plays for children. His travel books include cultural guides to the Alps, the Scottish Highlands and the River Danube, and to the cities of Prague and Cairo; more recently he has worked on books in the Rough Guides series on Switzerland and Germany. His stage plays for children have been performed by school and youth theatre groups in the UK, the United States and Australia, and include an adaptation of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper, as well as a retelling of the famous legend of King Arthur, Merlin and the Sword in the Stone. More information about his plays and books - including photographs taken during the research for his travel books, and performance histories of his plays - can be found on his website, http://www.andrewbeattie.me.uk/
