Václav Havel is one of the world-renowned icons of the fall of the Iron Curtain. This Czech writer, dissident, and politician gradually transformed from a playwright into a prisoner, and from a prisoner into a president. His life story is tied to Prague, where he was born exactly ninety years ago. Václav Havel was a playwright in a country that had itself turned into an absurd theatre, where roles were assigned by the Party and where improvisation was punished. Writing in such an environment meant writing reality itself, with the only difference being that on stage it was possible to at least hint at the truth, whereas in life it had to be hidden. Following the invasion of Soviet troops in August 1968, Václav Havel was banned from publishing; he became one of the leading dissidents and critics of the totalitarian regime. He spoke out in defence of human rights and was imprisoned repeatedly for it. His moral example and his essays became a fundamental inspiration for civil society in the struggle for freedom, which culminated in the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. The voice of Václav Havel in Prague first resonated through the mouths of characters in his plays on the stage of the Theatre on the Balustrade, and later from the man himself before a crowded Wenceslas Square. The Velvet Revolution transformed Prague beyond recognition, opening it to the world, to art, and to friendship. And so, in 1994, Václav Havel could go to the Reduta jazz club with Bill Clinton, where the American president played “Summertime” on the saxophone, even though it was only January. Václav Havel lit up Prague not only with freedom but also literally: his friends the Rolling Stones donated modern lighting for Prague Castle. And when he later left the presidential office, the artist Jiří David lit up a fifteen-meter neon heart at the Castle, similar to those with which Václav Havel embellished his signature. After his death, Praguers spontaneously created a collective heart of candles on Wenceslas Square – warm, glowing, and visible even from space. From all those candles, which never truly burned out, a giant sculpture titled “A Heart for Václav Havel” was then unveiled on the piazza of the National Theatre. Traces of Václav Havel remain evident in Prague’s buildings to this day. Architecture literally lived in his genes – his grandfather Vácslav Havel built the Lucerna Palace on Wenceslas Square in the centre of the city, as well as the Art Nouveau apartment building “At the Two Thousand” on the Rašín Embankment. Right next to it stands the world-famous Dancing House today, inspired by Václav Havel himself. And the story of a truth that can change the world resonates to this day in the premises of the former Church of St Anne, a seat of the Knights Templar in the Middle Ages, which Václav Havel transformed into the Prague Crossroads – a place for dialogue, concerts, and meditation in the very centre of the city.