Jiří Kovtun: Mysterious Murder. The case of Leopold Hilsner

This thirteen-part continuation maps the findings of the trial of the Jew Leopold Hilsner, who was accused of the ritual murder of the Christian woman Anežka Hrůzová. The book, published in 1994, summarized the existing knowledge about the Hilsneriad and brought a number of new facts, as well as a dramatic story, which the author conceived as a variation on Dostoevsky's theme. The author of this exceptional work is the American-Czech poet, novelist, historian, translator and publicist Jiří Kovtun. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at Charles University, but emigrated after the communist coup in 1948. He first worked as a social worker in Germany and Norway. From 1951 to 1973 he was editor of Radio Free Europe in Munich. From 1977 to 2000 he worked as a specialist in Czech and Slovak issues at the Library of Congress in Washington.