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Conversations With Arnost Lustig


Article # : 17386 

Section : BOOK WORLD
Issue Date : 1 / 1990  6,612 Words
Author : Interview

       The World & I: Many critics consider your portraits of women remarkable because they are sensitive and because they are sensitive and because you, as a Jewish writer, have created both Jewish and German heroines. Women are the main characters in several your books: A Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova, The Unloved, Dita Saxova, and Indecent Dreams.
       
        A Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova was nominated for the National Book Award -though you were ineligible because you were not yet a U.S. citizen. The Unloved and Dita Saxova won National Jewish Book Awards. Films made from A Prayer for Katerina Horovitzova and Dita Saxova won first prizes in European film festivals. Indecent Dreams was reviewed favorably on the front page of the New York Times Book Review.
       
        Still, it seems improbable somehow that after having lived in tough circumstances in the Holocaust and afterwards, as you dealt with a Czech communist regime, you would have chosen to create Daniela in "Red Oleanders."
       
        Arnost Lustig: In "Red Oleanders," I wanted to make the girl a little better than the boy because he is too much in love with an idea - and this idea turned out to be harmful. Any idea is partly only what you see in it. The idea is always some dream. You may not even realize that this dream cannot be called to take responsibility, while man is responsible for everything he does.
       
        The story is based on my experience of the first time I discovered that everything is connected. Before that I thought that if you were in love, it solves everything. But love is not alone, and duty is not ... (1994 of 34945 Characters)
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