Egon Hostovsky (1908-1973) was the youngest of eight children in a Jewish family in Czechoslovakia. When the Germans occupied the country, he fled the country and ended up in New York, where he worked at the exiled Czechoslovakian government's consulate. He is one of the authors who shaped Czech literature during the inter-war period, and who helped give form to the emergence of Central European literature represented by writers such as Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig (he and Zweig were cousins).
A superb writer Milan Kundera The Hideout is important as an encouraging example of a new spiritual trend in European literature Free World A remarkable novel... As absorbing reading it matches any popular novel, yet it does so without the customary devices The New Masses Hostovsky delights in discoveries of the depths and oddities, the strange courses and subtle transformations of human souls... A forceful language rich in images adds to the pleasure of reading Saturday Review