David Whiteman

The first resident of 2018 was David Whiteman from Edinburgh. He has devoted his life to writing since a prolonged stay in Prague, when he was nineteen. It forged his personal identity as a writer. During that time he engaged with Czech culture in a way that has stayed with him and his work ever since. In 2008, his first novel, A Cure for Solitude, was published. Set in post-communist era Czech Republic, it drew heavily on his experiences of living in Prague. In 2010 his first screenplay, Lost Generation, was optioned by TailorMade Productions. It tells the story of Ernest Hemingway’s and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s friendship during the summer of 1925. On the basis of his second novel (still in progress) he was signed by Peters, Fraser and Dunlop in February, 2017. PFD will seek to secure UK and international publishing rights (Czech Republic included) for the book on its completion.

For the past five years, he has been researching and writing his second novel Black Hand. Set in Prague and the Eastern Front of the First World War, it aims to disseminate the motives of Gavrilo Princip in assassinating the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and show the impact of his actions on a small set of Czech citizens: in Prague, in Terezin, and on the Eastern Front. The book also aims to highlight the reluctance with which so many Czechs went into the First World War, fighting for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as depicting the origins of the Czech Legion.

Resident's Mes­sage

Author reading