Antonín Jaroslav Liehm

Antonín Jaroslav Liehm (2 March 1924 – 4 December 2020) was a Czech-born writer, publisher, translator, and scholar residing in Paris.

In 1984, Antonín J. Liehm founded the European culture magazine Lettre International. The French version ceased publication in 1993, but some of its many offspring remain in publication. Notably, the German version of the magazine has come out continuously since its foundation in 1988.

Biography Antonín J. Liehm studied political sciences at in Prague, graduating in 1949.

Kulturní politika In 1945, Liehm, along with Emil František Burian, founded a weekly magazine, titled Kulturní politika (Cultural politics). The magazine was pro-communist and would eventually be taken over and kept in publication by the Czech Writers' Association. Foreign minister Vladimír Clementis offered Liehm a position in the ministry's press department. Clementis was hanged in 1952, after the Stalinist Slánský trial. Subsequently Liehm himself was fired from his position at the ministry and at the magazine. In 1956 Liehm was hired back, then finally let go again in 1960.

Literární noviny In 1960, Liehm started work at the literary magazine Literární noviny. Liehm took over as editor in 1960/1961. The magazine's circulation went up to 130,000 copies per issue. Among those working close to Liehm at the time were Ludvík Vaculík, Milan Kundera, Jan Procházka, Pavel Kohout and Ivan Klíma. Publication and further development of the magazine ceased, along with the Prague Spring after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Emigration and Lettre International In 1969 Liehm emigrated to Paris with his wife Drahomíra N. Liehm. After temporarily accepting a teaching position at Richmond College-CUNY in the USA, Liehm and his wife returned to Paris in 1982, where he held a post at the Paris Diderot University and later at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. Liehm taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1979 until 1983. His daughter stated he lived in Paris for 32 years overall while he spent 12 years in the USA, where he obtained US citizenship.

In 1984 Liehm founded the magazine Lettre International, along with writer Paul Noirot. Liehm described the magazine's concept in these words: "If we had a good text, whether German, American, Russian, then we sought out a context for it. Other texts that would surround it, provide commentary, even if they were not written for that purpose at all. […] Our goals was to produce a play of mirrors around a text."

In 2013, he resettled from Paris back to Prague, where he died in 2020 aged 96.