Arnost Lustig
(December 21, 1926 - February 26, 2011)

4000 Tunlaw Rd. NW, Glover Park neighborhood, DC.

Author of over a dozen novels and books of short fiction, Lustig is best remembered for the novels Night and Hope (1957), A Prayer for Katerina Horowitzowa (1974), and Lovely Green Eyes (2004). He also wrote plays and screenplays; much of his work was on the subject of the Holocaust.

Lustig was born in Prague, and was interred in three Nazi concentration camps during World War II. He later worked as a correspondent for Radio Prague, but left the Czech Republic following the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 that ended the Prague Spring. He lived for a time in Israel and Yugoslavia before coming to the US to teach.

Lustig lived in an apartment in this building between 1989 and 2003, while teaching at American University. After his retirement from AU, he returned to the country of his birth, where he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize.

Author photo by Vlastní dílo, used under Creative Commons license.