[Note: I often bring a pocketful of snark to these interviews and sprinkle some around. I won’t be doing that in this interview because Jasha M. Levi is a man who has met and conquered greater challenges than most of us, and he is deserving of our full respect, admiration, and gratitude. ]
Author Jasha Levi says he wanted to be a novelist but as his background is journalism he feels he is better at non-fiction. Still, where there is a story to be written, there must be inspiration. Jasha says he used to find his in some hot political controversy, such as the rift between Yugoslavia and Stalin way back in 1948, or the Rajk pretend-trial in Hungary in 1950.
“My last two books are memoirs — The Last Exile was a kind of reportage about so many things that happened to me during the rise of Hitler in Europe, confinement as civilian internee of war in Italy 1941-43, a Jewish fugitive with false papers in Rome for nine months until the Allies liberated it, my career starting at age 24, as foreign editor, radio commentator and international correspondent until in 1956 I took asylum in the US in protest over Tito’s refusal to condemn the invasion of Hungary,” he says. Continue reading “Meet the Author: Jasha M. Levi”
