Život, nebo Psaní? Arnošt Lustig v rozhovorech, zamyšleních a literárních textech – Chateau Ladislava (2024)

Although it may seem that everything has been said about Arnošt Lustig, writer and journalist Ladislava Chateau presents him in a completely different light in the interviews she conducted with him towards the end of his life, during which she became friends with him. They focus on his literary heroines, Kateřina Horovitzová and Dita Saxová, and explore his relationship with women as well as the reasons why, unlike most, he devoted many of his texts to the fates of women in extreme situations. In further interviews, memories of Arnošt Lustig and his work are shared by writer and the author's wife Věra Weislitzová, their children Josef and Eva, a fellow camp survivor and escapee Jiří Justic, family friend Václav Špale, and Lustig's editor Irena Zítková. Some of the interviews were published in magazines in 2007 and 2008, while others were created specifically for the book. Some are conducted in a classic format, while others take the form of letters. The book is interwoven with numerous excerpts from Lustig's works and verses – not only – by Věra Weislitzová. From all these fragments, memories, reflections, and texts, a picture of the personality of Arnošt Lustig and what Life and Writing meant to him emerges for the readers.