[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 85 (Monday, May 22, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


    COMMENDING ALAN LEVY FOR HIS OUTSTANDING WORK AS AN AUTHOR AND 
                               JOURNALIST

                                 ______


                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Monday, May 22, 1995
  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in commending 
Alan Levy, founding editor-in-chief of the Prague Post and the 1995 
recipient of the American Society of Journalists and Authors award, 
``Author of the Year.'' Mr. Levy's latest book, ``The Wiesenthal 
File,'' is an extraordinary examination of famed Nazi-hunter Simon 
Wiesenthal's life work and its enormous continuing relevance in today's 
world.
  As an awarding-winning writer in the 1950's and 1960's, Alan Levy 
began to chart a career that would carry him and his family through 
some of this century's most turbulent and historically critical 
moments. Taking his wife and two children to Czechoslovakia in 1967, 
Levy found himself eyewitness to de-Stalinization and Alexander 
Dubcek's Prague spring of freedom, the Soviet invasion of August 21, 
1968, and the fall and winter of Russian occupation and repression. 
Although the Levy family was expelled from Czechoslovakia in 1971, the 
experience was fodder for Levy's two monumental and critically 
acclaimed books on Czechoslovakia, ``Rowboat to Prague'' (1972), and 
``The Bluebird of Happiness'' (1976).
  Levy spent the next 20 years in Vienna, publishing award-winning 
travel and theater articles for the New York Sunday Times and many 
other world-renowned publications. Vienna also witnessed the world 
premiere of Levy's first play, ``The World of Ruth Draper,'' in 1982. 
The play ran in Vienna, toured Europe, and enjoyed a successful 5-week 
run in New York's Times Square.
  In 1990, Levy returned to Prague as founding editor-in-chief of the 
Czech Republic's leading English-language newspaper. From this post, he 
has provided the English-speaking world an unparalleled reportage and 
analysis of the radical, post-communist transformation of one of 
Central Europe's most dynamic and beautiful countries.
  Mr. Speaker, Alan Levy's most recent, critically acclaimed work, 
``The Wiesenthal File,'' assures his place among the great writers and 
journalists of our century. On this day following his receipt of the 
Author of the year Award, I ask my colleagues to join me in 
congratulating Alan Levy on his accomplishments and celebrating his 
outstanding career in literature and journalism.


                          ____________________