SOURCE: "Václav Havel: The Once and Future Playwright," in Kenyon Review, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 223-31.

In the following essay, Skloot considers the literary accomplishment of Havel's drama in relation to the works of Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Eugene Ionesco, and Samuel Beckett.

In the short space of a few years, we have been witness to a Havel industry. Images of the Czech playwright-politician appear frequently in the West, and his words are quoted often whenever democrats of all kinds convene. His life is held up as an example of resistance to the tyrant's authority and the terrors of the state, and he is celebrated by those who have suffered brutal indignities as well as by those who have suffered not at all.

In 1992, with the fragmentation of his bipartite nation and the loss of his presidency, the simple fact of his unwavering commitment to human rights and...