Research Triangle Park, N.C.  Adam Michnik, prominent Polish essayist, intellectual, and former dissident against communist rule, will engage in a public forum at the National Humanities Center at 4:00 p.m. on Friday, April 7. Michnik has been editor in chief of one of Eastern Europe's most respected dailies, Gazeta Wyborcza, since its inception in 1989. A life-long activist for human rights, he was detained many times between 1965 and 1986, spending a total of six years in prison for his opposition to the communist regime. An adviser to the Solidarity trade union federation during the 1980s, he was a negotiator for the Solidarity team during the Round Table negotiations of 1989 between representatives of the government, Solidarity, and other groups that brought an end to communist rule in Poland. The author of Letters from Prison and Other Essays, Michnik has recently been awarded the 2006 Dan David Prize for being the journalist most associated with the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the rise of freedom in Eastern Europe.

Michnik will be in residence at the Center through April 26. For information, call 549-0661.

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