Czech chief rabbi Sidon wins state literature prize for his books

Writer and playwright Karol Sidon, former dissident and Charter 77 signatory and the country's current chief rabbi, received the Czech state prize for literature from Culture Minister Lubomir Zaoralek in the National Theatre in Prague on Sunday night. The jury appreciated Sidon's lifelong contribution to literature, especially his first novels Dream about My Father (1968) and Dream about Myself (1970) and his screenplays for film director Juraj Jakubisko. The above novels are about how Sidon was brought up without his Jewish father who perished in the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1944.