Václav Havel (pronounced in Czech ['va: ʦlaf' ɦavɛl]) (Prague, October 5, 1936-Vlčice, Czech Republic, December 18, 2011) was a Czech politician, writer, and playwright. He was the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic.

Born into a bourgeois family (his father was a film entrepreneur and owned a film studio and other companies, and his maternal grandfather had been a famous diplomat and journalist) the young Václav had trouble continuing his studies in the communist stage after finishing his school education in 1951, due to his bourgeois origin. He was able to enroll in the Prague Faculty of Economics and in 1964 he married Olga Šplíchalová, of working-class origin, to whom he would dedicate his Letters to Olga, written during his frequent visits to prison.

Havel worked as an assistant in a chemistry lab until he established himself as a playwright in the late 1950s, after studying Dramatic Art by correspondence. He achieved fame as a poetic author with works such as Zahradni slavnost ("The Party", 1963) and Vyrozumeni ("The Memorandum", 1965). He belonged to the group of writers in the environment of the Tvar magazine.