Avigdor Dagan


Avigdor Dagan was an Czech and later Israeli writer, playwright, literary translator and diplomat. Prior to adopting the Hebraic name in 1955, his name was Viktor Fischl, Dagan, being related to the Hebrew word dag, an approximate translation of Fischl as a diminutive of "fish".

Life

After graduating from the Charles University in Prague, he entered the diplomatic service. In 1939 he emigrated to the United Kingdom to escape the Nazis, where he became an associate to Jan Masaryk. After the end of the war, he returned home, but on the 1948 coup d'état emigrated to Israel, thereafter changing his name to the one he held through the end of his life.
In Israel he continued his diplomatic career becoming plenipotentiary; he was the first Israeli ambassador in Vienna in 1956, the ambassador in Norway was translated into 12 languages.

Selected works