James Ragan – the “Czechoslovak” US poet who spends every summer at Václav Havel’s old flat

James Ragan is a US poet, screenwriter, playwright and teacher with
extremely strong Czechoslovak ties. Indeed some of his siblings were born
in Eastern Slovakia before his parents decided during the Depression to
build new lives in Pittsburgh. Ragan began visiting Communist
Czechoslovakia as a teenager and in recent decades – inspired by a
meeting with Václav Havel – the writer has been a visiting professor at
Prague’s Charles University every summer.