From the North American Branch weekly newsletter

SAD NEWS: Our long-time member Josef Skvorecky died on January 3, in Toronto. He was 87. Skvorecky was a Czech émigré writer who moved to Canada in 1969, where he taught for many years at the University of Toronto, and with his wife, Zdena Salivarova, ran 68 Publishers, which published banned Czech works, including his. His best known novel was The Engineer of Human Souls, which won the Governor-General’s Award in Canada. He also won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1980, and in 1990, he won the Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada for "Humbug," in The End of Lieutenant Boruvka. 

Here’s a link to a fine piece about Josef from the Globe & Mail. 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/josef-skvorecky-a-writer-between-two-worlds/article2291370/