Panorama | All stories

"Roma Rising/Romske Obrozeni" is a collection of portraits by the American photographer Chad Evans Wyatt of over 100 Czech Romani people, working professionals "of great intelligence, integrity and accomplishment." In today's edition of Panorama (the second half of a series), Brian Kenety speaks to some young Romani people portrayed in that project -- among them a medical student, a public relations specialist, and a computer programmer who heads the Romani students' organisation called Athinganoi.

While shooting portraits for what was to become an award-winning book - "101: Artists in the Post-Revolution Czech Republic" - the American photographer Chad Evans Wyatt became interested in bringing a very different kind of project to light. This autumn, he is set to publish "Roma Rising," a collection of portraits of over 100 Czech Romani people "of great intelligence, integrity and accomplishment."

Virtually unknown during his lifetime, the surreal works of Franz Kafka have become synonymous with the grotesque alienation of modern man in an unintelligible, hostile, or at best indifferent world. But as Brian Kenety has been finding out, "Kafkaesque" is not a term that does justice to the man himself, according to the authors of a new opera based on "The Trial," his most famous novel.

Traces of the earliest Czech-American urban centres are still evident today, in street names recalling Czech patriots and historic towns, Sokol community centres, St. Wenceslas churches, and the like. But it's in America's "heartland" --especially in rural communities in states like Nebraska and Texas-- where Czech traditions are perhaps best preserved and most widely celebrated.