Authors

During the war he spent time in both Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps. In March 1945 he escaped from a death march. From 1948-1949 he worked as a journalist covering the first Arab-Israeli conflict. Afterwards he became the editor of Czechoslovak Radio. In 1950 he graduated from the School of Political and Social Sciences. From 1958 he worked as the editor of the weekly paper Mladý svět, and from 1960 as a screenwriter at the Barrandov Film Studios. After the August invasion he left Czechoslovakia and lived in Yugoslavia and Israel before settling in the United States where he lectured on film and literature at the American University in Washington. From 1995-1997 he was editor-in-chief of the Czech version of Playboy.

Arnošt Lustig’s experiences from the Holocaust were to be of fundamental importance in his life and were the central inspiration in his literary work. In his writings Lustig does not try to deal with the overarching mechanisms of war, but with the immense suffering of the individual. His heroes are ordinary, unexceptional people, burdened with the tragic experiences of the concentration camps. The traumatic experiences which they undergo, the absurdity of their environment and the constant threat to their lives are contrasted with the feelings of frequently emotionally immature young individuals. The main characters in Lustig’s novels are often women (Kateřina Horovitzová, Hanka Kaudersová, or the heroines from the Jewish trilogy: Lea, Colette a Tanga), whose experiences haunt them or even destroy them right at the moment of their new-found freedom (Dita Saxová). The male heroes are often confronted by the problem of escape or collaboration (Démanty noci [Diamonds Of The Night], Porges, Můj známý Vili Feld [My Friend Vili Feld] etc.). The extensive literary output of Arnošt Lustig is limited to some extent by its specific subject matter, a problem which is altogether negligible in regard to its qualitative restrictions. Arnošt Lustig’s short stories, which were written in the 1960s, correspond well to the poetics of the time - they are bleak, sober, with significant elements of psychological reflection. Their rational dramatic character and timeless imagery create an overall feeling of tension. His later works show signs of a decline: the problem is not one of being monothematic, but a loss of the initial inner dynamic. The realistic foundation here wears an exhausted, strangely surreal mask (Krásné zelené oči) [Lovely Green Eyes]. Arnošt Lustig has also had his stories adapted for film. In 1962 Transport From Paradise was directed by Zbyněk Brynych and two years later Diamonds Of The Night was directed by Jan Němec. After his return from exile to the Czech Republic he was awarded the Karel Čapek prize. In 2005 the publishing house Mladá fronta took over the publishing of his Complete Works from Odeon and Hynek publishers.

2009 international Man Booker prize nomination, 2008 Franz Kafka award.

 

(mmm)

This author profile was last updated on February 27th, 2011

 

En français Arnošt LUSTIG, En français.doc

www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Slavonic/Lustig.htm (text by Aleš Haman)