Ludvík Aškenazy

Ludvik Ashkenazy (; 24 February 1921 in Český Těšín, Czechoslovakia – 18 March 1986 in Bolzano, Italy) was a Czech writer and journalist. He was born into a Jewish family in Stanisławów, then part of the Second Republic of Poland, now present-day Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine (also the site of the Stanisławów Ghetto).

He studied Slavonic philology in Lviv, which was then part of Poland.

During World War II, he was a soldier in the Czech units of the Soviet Army in the Soviet Union. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Between 1945 and 1950 he worked in the state Czechoslovak Radio and after that, he became a government-sanctioned "writer."

After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he left for exile and until 1976 lived in Munich. Between 1976 and 1986, he lived in the Italian town of Bolzano with his wife, Leonie Mann, daughter of the German writer Heinrich Mann. He had two sons, Jindřich Mann, also a writer, and Ludwik Mann, who illustrated a number of his books.

He won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1977 for his book ''Wo die Füchse Blockflöte spielen'', and was shortlisted for the same prize in 1993 for ''Der Schlittschuhkarpfen''.

He is celebrated in an annual festival in the town of Český Těšín, Czech Republic. Provided by Wikipedia