The 2005 Seifert Prize Awarded to Two SVU Members

The Seifert Prize, this year, has been awarded to two literary Czech figures, both members of our Society, Viktor Fischl and Josef Skvorecky. The Prizes were awarded in the historical “Aula” of Charles University, in the presence of diplomats and other personalities of the artistic world.

Viktor Fischl was born in Hradec Kralove on June 30, 1912. he studied law (JUDr. 1938) and sociology at Charles University. Since 1933, he was a freelance writer, a contributor to Czech radio and editor of Zionist weekly Zidovske zpravy. During the World War II he lived in England where he worked for the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Exile and was a close collaborator of Jan Masaryk. In 1948 he settled in Israel where he accepted the Hebraic name Avigdor Dagan. He joined the Israeli diplomatic service which took him in Ambassadorial roles to Japan, Burma, Yugoslavia, Poland, Norway and Austria. Since his retirement he lives in Israel and writes.

His numerous literary works include: Jaro (1933), Kniha o noci (1936), Hebrejske melodie (1956), Evropske zalmy(London 1941), Mrtva ves (London 1943), Anglicke sonety (1946) , Pisen o litosti (1948), etc. Most of his prosaic works were published in Israel and are little by little published in Czech Republic. Among his non-fiction tirles of particular note are his Conversations with Jan Masaryk (1952), Moscow and Jerusalem. Twenty Years of Relations between Israel and the Soviet Union (London 1970) and the biography of the late Dr. Karel Steinbach under the title Svedek temer stolety (A Witness Almost Centenary).

Josef Skvorecky, born in 1924 in Náchod, Czeckoslovakia, received a Ph.D. from Charles University in Prague. He was fired from his job when his novel The Cowards was published. Since then he has freelanced, writing novels, film scripts and non-fiction. In 1969 he emigrated to Canada with his wife, and helped her run 68 Publishers, and is now working on his "collected works” foe a Prague publisher.

His publications include: The Bride of Texas. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 1995; Dvorák in Love. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1990; The Engineer of Human Souls. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1984; The Bass Saxaphone. Toronto: Anson-Cartwright, 1977; The Cowards. New York: Grove, 1970.

His accomplishments have been recognized by numerous awards, including Order of the White Lion, highest Czechoslovak order for foreigners ( 1990), Echoing Green Foundation Literary Prize, for life work (1990), Governor General's Award for Fiction, for The Engineer of Human Souls ( 1984), Neustadt International Prize for Literature, for life work (1980).

Congratulations to both.

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