Michael Žantovský (born 3 January 1949, Prague) is a Czech diplomat, politician, author, journalist, lyricist and psychologist. He is a former Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United Kingdom, as well as to Israel and the United States.

Education, background, scientific work

Born in Prague in a literary family, he was educated at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University, Prague (

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

''summa cum laude'' in clinical and social psychology, 1973) and

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...

, Montreal. From 1973 until 1980 he worked in the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, where he did research in the fields of theory of motivation and sexual behavior. He left the Institute in 1980 and worked as a free-lance translator, lyricist and publicist. He contributed to the underground press. In 1988-89 he worked as the Prague correspondent for

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was esta ...

, the international news agency. With his first wife, playwright and journalist Kristina Žantovská, they have a daughter Ester (*1980) and son Jonáš (*1984). With his second wife, Jana Žantovská, an award-winning photographer working under the ''nom de plume'' Jane Noseková, they have a son David (*2001) and daughter Rebeka (*2003).

Political and diplomatic career

During the Velvet Revolution in 1989 he was among the founding members of the Civic Forum, the umbrella organization coordinating the overthrow of the communist regime, and became its press spokesman. In January 1990 he became the spokesman, press secretary and advisor to President

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...

. From 1992 until 1997 he served as the Ambassador of Czechoslovakia and subsequently (from January 1993) the Czech Republic in the United States. In November 1996, he was elected to the Czech Senate in a Prague district. From 1996 until 2002 he was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security. He initiated and co-drafted, ''inter alia'', the Czech Freedom of Information Act of 1999. In March 1997, he was elected leader of the

Civic Democratic Alliance The Civic Democratic Alliance ( cs, Občanská demokratická aliance, ODA) was a conservative-liberal political party in the Czech Republic, active between 1989 (founded shortly after the Velvet revolution) and 2007. The ODA was part of govern ...

(ODA), a liberal conservative party, member of the governing coalition. He was the Vice-president of the party from 1998 until 2001, when he was again elected the party's leader. In 2002, he returned to the Czech Foreign Service. From 2003 until 2009 he served as the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the State of Israel. Since October 2009 until September 2015, he was the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United Kingdom. In 2003, he was the co-founder and first executive director of the Program of Atlantic Security Studies (PASS), a part of the think-tank Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI). Since July 2012, Žantovský served as President of the Aspen Institute Prague and member of the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute.. He is now the Honorary President of Aspen Institute Central Europe. Since September 2015, he is the Director of the Václav Havel Library. He is also a member of the board of the New York-based Vaclav Havel Library Foundation.

Literary work

He translated more than fifty works of fiction, drama and poetry, of mostly contemporary American and British writers, including works by James Baldwin, Norman Mailer,

Joseph Heller Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) was an American author of novels, short stories, plays, and screenplays. His best-known work is the 1961 novel ''Catch-22'', a satire on war and bureaucracy, whose title has become a synonym for ...

E.L. Doctorow Edgar Lawrence Doctorow (January 6, 1931 – July 21, 2015) was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for his works of historical fiction. He wrote twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction and a stage drama. They included ...

, Nadine Gordimer,

Toni Morrison Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' So ...

Tom Stoppard Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...

et al. He translated films and short stories of

Woody Allen Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...

, and wrote a monograph on his life and work (1990). He translated also non-fiction works by

Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...

Madeleine Albright Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (born Marie Jana Korbelová; May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 64th United States secretary of state from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Democratic ...

Joshua Muravchik Joshua Muravchik (born September 17, 1947 in New York City) is a neoconservative political scholar. A distinguished fellow at the DC-based World Affairs Institute. He is also an adjunct professor at the DC-based Institute of World Politics (since 1 ...

et al. From Hebrew he translated the memoirs of

Amos Oz Amos Oz ( he, עמוס עוז; born Amos Klausner; 4 May 1939 – 28 December 2018) was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist, and intellectual. He was also a professor of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. From 1967 onw ...

''A Tale of Love and Darkness''. With his first wife he co-authored a play, ''The Poor Mouth'' (1985) based on a short novel by Myles na gCopaleen (

Brian O'Nolan Brian O'Nolan ( ga, Brian Ó Nualláin; 5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966), better known by his pen name Flann O'Brien, was an Irish civil service official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a major figure in twentieth ce ...

). He has written and published many essays and articles on foreign policy, current affairs and literature. He co-authored the book ''Freedom of Information in the Legal System of the Czech Republic'' (2002). In 2014, his biography of

has been published both in Czech and English (

Atlantic Books Atlantic Books is an independent British publishing house, with its headquarters in Ormond House in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is perhaps best known for publishing Aravind Adiga's debut novel '' The White Tiger'', which r ...

) and subsequently in more than ten other languages.

References

External links

Embassy of the Czech Republic in the UK

Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic

Embassy Czech London Facebook
*
Aspen Institute Prague
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zantovsky, Michael 1949 births Living people Diplomats from Prague Czech male writers Czech journalists Czech psychologists Charles University alumni McGill University Faculty of Science alumni Ambassadors of the Czech Republic to the United States Civic Democratic Alliance Senators Leaders of the Civic Democratic Alliance Ambassadors of the Czech Republic to Israel