Paul Robert Wilson (born 3 July 1941 in Hamilton, Ontario) is a Canadian translator and writer. In 1967 he moved to Czechoslovakia where he performed as a singer with The Plastic People of the Universe. Because he was a member of this group, he was expelled from Czechoslovakia in 1977.[1] This band was banned in Czechoslovakia and their recordings could not be officially released. Wilson later founded a record label Boží Mlýn and released some of their recordings in Canada.[2]
Paul Wilson later went on to become one of the major translators into English of Václav Havel's work. In 2006 he was working on a new translation of The Memorandum for the Havel Festival, which also features two of his other translations.[3]
He also translated many books, such as I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal, from Czech to English, and more recently Mr. Kafka and Other Tales from the Time of the Cult (2015).[4]