Now that Live Not By Lies has become a bestseller, I’d like to highlight some of the people who helped me make this book possible. These people were my translators in various countries, and, to some degree, my local “producers” — in that they made and managed the connections I needed to interview former dissidents. My book would not have been possible without them. Any success the book had is their success too, in a real way.

Above you can see Father Stepan Smolen, a Czech Catholic priest. He is one of the most remarkable people I have ever met, anywhere. His English is impeccable, and his faith is vibrantly orthodox. He is an intellectual whose brilliance can be hard to see when you first meet him, because he is so quiet, humble and gentle. But inside, he is fierce! This young man and those who admire him are the future of Catholic Christianity in the Czech Republic. He is, in fact, a writer and even a bestselling novelist in his country and neighboring Slovakia — if any American Catholic book publishers would like to be in touch with him, reach out to me.

Below is me at the monument in Bratislava to Father Tomislav Kolakovic, the founder of the underground Catholic Church in Slovakia. On my left is Timo Krizka, a Catholic photographer whose story is featured in the concluding chapter of Live Not By Lies. On my right is Juraj Sust, a Catholic who heads up Hanus Days, an ideas festival held every year in Bratislava. I knew very little about Slovakia before going to speak at Hanus Days in 2019, and being introduced by these men to survivors of the underground church there. If not for them, I would have had no idea who Father Kolakovic was. The Christian witness of that little country, Slovakia, and its Christian people has been totally overlooked here in the West. I hope my book changes that — and if it does, you can see in this picture the two Slovak men you have to thank for that:

Another key Slovak in the writing of Live Not By Lies was my translator Viliam Ostatnik, shown here on the left with the historian Jan Simulcik (who is in the book), inside the hidden Bratislava chamber where the underground church published samizdat prayer books and other church literature for a decade, undetected by the secret police:

In Poland, my translator and interview coordinator was Lukasz Kozuchowski, with whom I am here drinking beer in Warsaw:

In Hungary, I could not have done a thing without the magnificent Anna Salyi, whose own family suffered greatly under communism, and whose parents, Tamas Salyi and Judit Pastor, are in the book. Here is Anna with Maria Wittner, a national hero of the 1956 uprising against Soviet occupation:

In Russia, my translator and coordinator was Matthew Casserly, an American expat working in Moscow. I didn’t have my smartphone with me in Russia, for security reasons, so Matthew sent me this photo of himself outside Tolstoy’s estate, Yasnaya Polyana:

I could not have done this reporting in Russia without the organizational assistance of the religion scholar Dmitry Uzlaner, to whom I owe a debt I cannot hope to repay:

There were so many more who gave of their time to tell their stories, and the stories of persecuted Christianity under the communist yoke in Russia and Europe. Again: any success of Live Not By Lies is their success too. One of my greatest hopes for the book is that it will inspire other writers to go to Russia, go to the former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe, and talk to the incredible men and women of that world. I could spend the rest of my life writing about them. Thank you, friends. Thank you.