Imre Kertész (b.
November 9, 1929), Hungarian novelist
"When I am thinking about a new novel, I always think of Auschwitz."
Kertész was awarded the 2002
Nobel Prize in Literature "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history", becoming the first Hungarian to receive that honor. He has a small but devoted following in
Europe, but only two of his novels have been translated into
English. His reception in his native country has been mixed, probably because his work tackles issues that are too sensitive and relatively fresh for his countrymen: Nazi genocide and
communist tyranny.
Born into a
Jewish family in
Budapest, he was only 14 when he was sent to
Auschwitz when the Nazis came to town in
1944. Later he was transferred to
Buchenwald, where he was liberated in
1945. In
1948, he worked as a journalist for the Budapest newspaper
Világossá, but was fired in
1951when the publication adopted a hard
party line after the communists took power. From then on he supported himself as a translator of
German language authors such as
Elias Canetti,
Sigmund Freud,
Hugo von Hofmannsthal,
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Joseph Roth,
Arthur Schnitzler, and
Ludwig Wittgenstein. Though Kertész was never censored, success in his native land eluded him as long as the communists were in power because he refused to join the Party’s official writer’s association.
It took ten years for Kertész to find a publisher for his debut novel,
Fateless (
Sorstalanság,
1975). It was the first in a
trilogy featuring
protagonist György Köves. Like the others that followed, it was an "
autobiographical novel" based on his experiences, but not strictly autobiographical, as the author has said he does not want to write about his own life. Köves is a 15-year old in Buchenwald ostracized by other Jews because he can’t speak
Hebrew or
Yiddish, but learns to cope and survive. In
Fiasco (
A kudarc,
1988), Köves is a bitter middle-aged novelist whose book about his experience in Buchenwald is published. Instead of the solace he is seeking, Köves reacts with distaste and sadness. In
Kaddish for a Child not Born (
Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért,
1990), Köves refuses to bring a child into the world which permitted the death camps and says a prayer (the
Kaddish) mourning the child’s nonexistence.
Those who write about Kertész take pains to note that he is an amiable and humorous man who doesn’t seem to be tortured like the characters in his novels.
Sources:
Gale Contemporary Authors database
New York Times, October 11, 2002
http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/2002/kertesz-bibl.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kerte.htm