The VIZE 97 Prize will be presented to professor Andrew Lass
The 16th VIZE 97 Prize will be presented at the Prague Crossroads – the Church of St. Anne – on the 78th birthday of Václav Havel. The laureate for the year 2014 will be Andrew Lass, a professor of cultural and social anthropology at Mount Holyoke College.
He was expelled from Czechoslovakia by the Husák’s normalization regime in 1973. It was just on time to have his cervical spine tumor removed by neurosurgeons in Boston. He thus became one of the few people whose life was unintentionally saved by the State Police.
This surrealist, essayist, author of Czech poems and photographer is also the initiator of the CASLIN Project – the Czech and Slovak library information network. You may find interesting that the professor speaks Czech perfectly, revealing no sign of his US citizenship.
In compliance with the mission of the VIZE 97 Prize, professor Andrew Lass will receive the prize for his lifelong work as a man who always defended the freedom of speech and ideas, demonstrated moral responsibility and was closely connected to the Czech Republic.