Arnošt Lustig was born in Prague in 1926, a city in which he lived until, during the Second World War, he was captured by the Nazis and interned in the camps of Terezin, Buchenwald and Auschwitz. After the war, he was sent as a correspondent of Czech radio to cover the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1945, and then began a fruitful literary career that would lead him to write scripts, stories and novels translated into more than twenty-four languages. During the sixties it helped to set in motion what became known as the Czech New Wave. Thus, he wrote a number of scripts based on his own novels and short stories, which received a warm welcome around the world (for example, at the San Sebastian Film Festival), and among which Dita Saxová should be mentioned. , A prayer for Kateřina Horovitzová, Transport From Paradise or Diamonds of the Night. In 1968, coinciding with the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Arnost Lustig was forced to leave his country and go into exile in the United States with his wife Vera and his children Josef and Eva. There he served as Professor of Literature and Film at the American University of Washington D. C. In 2003, after leaving teaching at the university as Professor Emeritus of Film and Literature, he returned to Prague. He was then given an apartment in Prague Castle through the then President Václav Havel, and in 2006, on his 80th birthday, he received due recognition for his contributions to the culture of the Czech Republic. In 2008, Lustig became the eighth recipient of the prestigious Kafka Prize. After his return to Prague, he worked as editor-in-chief of the Czech edition of Playboy, and was a professor of cinematography and creative writing at various universities in the Czech Republic and Israel. He was Honorary President of the Franz Kafka Society, the Nine Gates International Festival of Jewish and German Culture, and the Czech Minds (Česká Hlava) Society. In 2009 he received the Lifetime Achievement Literature Award, granted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a nomination for the Man Booker. He was a candidate on several occasions for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He received twice the National Jewish Book Award, as well as the Karel Čapek Award, as well as an Emmy as co-author of the script for the documentary The Precious Legacy. He died in 2011, at 84 years of age, victim of a lymphoma. His most recognized works are A Prayer by Kateřina Horovitzová (nominated for the National Book Award in 1974), Night and Hope (1985), Dita Saxová (1979) and Green Eyes (2004).