Czech-born novelist, journalist and lecturer Juan Braun
(left) catches up with his uncle, Jerry Sigmond, in South
Dunedin on Saturday. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.
Czech-born novelist, journalist and lecturer Juan Braun
has written 30 books and sold hundreds of thousands of copies
while tackling some of life's great mysteries - love, politics
and spirituality.
Now he's turning his attention further south, to New Zealand,
while on a trip to Dunedin to renew family links.
Dr Braun, aged in his 60s, has been in Dunedin for the past
week catching up with his uncle, Jerry Sigmond (85).
The trip to Dunedin was part of a month-long tour of New
Zealand to visit members of his 700-strong ''clan'' of
relatives spread across the country, he said.
That included Mr Sigmond, whom he had promised to visit when
the pair were last together - 16 years ago in Prague, Dr
Braun said.
''I promised him that I would one day come to New Zealand. I
didn't give him a date and I took 16 years, but finally I
said `all right'.''
Such were the family connections, he had already started to
sketch the beginnings of a new book exploring his family
history in New Zealand, Dr Braun told the Otago Daily Times.
His parents and other family members were among those who
fled Czechoslovakia when the communists seized power in 1948,
and while some stayed in Europe, others moved as far away as
Argentina, Australia and New Zealand.
Dr Braun said he planned to explore those links, including
possible connections between his relatives and two former
United States presidents - George Washington and John F.
Kennedy.
However, he already had one thing in his favour for his
genealogical quest.
''As a novelist, I can make things happen,'' he said.
Some of Dr Braun's previous works mixed historical figures,
fact and fiction, including explorations of what - really -
killed Argentina's former first lady, Eva Peron, and a
romance between guerrilla leader Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara and
an opera singer in Prague in 1966.
Others delved into erotic fiction, tales of romantic liaisons
and spirituality, mixed with Dr Braun's other work as a
university lecturer and journalist while based in Prague,
where he lived for six months of each year.
The rest of his time was spent travelling to one of the 188
countries he has visited to date, and he was pleased to
finally add New Zealand to the list.
''When I look at the map, you are too far, but I'm a
traveller.''
Dr Braun also took time out while in Dunedin to visit another
Czech-born writer, Dr Jindra Ticha, who fled the communists
40 years ago and also settled in Dunedin.
Dr Ticha was last year voted the 11th most influential Czech
expatriate in a list of 20 selected by the Czech public, to
officially recognise the contribution of Czechs who left the
country during the communist era.
She was the only Australasian to make the list from the two
million Czechs living abroad, joining luminaries such as
tennis great Martina Navratilova and former United States
secretary of state Madeleine Albright.
Dr Braun said he was impressed with New Zealand's scenery,
but not with the country's high food prices. He expected to
have a first draft of his new book completed within four
months, and the results published sometime next year, when it
would be translated from Spanish - the language he preferred
to write in - to English.
Dr Braun travelled to Christchurch yesterday and was due to
leave New Zealand for his next destinations, Thailand and
Myanmar, this week.
-chris.morris@odt.co.nz
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