Imre Kertész
Encyclopedia
Imre Kertész is a Hungarian
Jewish author, Holocaust concentration camp survivor, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
in 2002 "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history".
, Hungary
. At the age of 14 he was deported with other Hungarian Jews during World War II
to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and was later sent to Buchenwald.
Kertész' best-known work, Fatelessness (Sorstalanság), describes the experience of fifteen-year-old György (George) Köves in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz
. Some have interpreted the book as quasi-autobiographical
, but the author disavows a strong biographical connection. His writings translated into English include Kaddish for a Child Not Born (Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért) and Liquidation (Felszámolás). Kertész initially found little appreciation for his writing in Hungary
and moved to Germany
. Kertész started translating German works into Hungarian—such as The Birth of Tragedy
by Nietzsche, the plays of Dürrenmatt, Schnitzler
and Tankred Dorst
, the thoughts of Wittgenstein—and did not publish another novel until the late 1980s. He continues to write in Hungarian
and submits his works to publishers in Hungary.
A film
based on his novel Fatelessness was made in Hungary in 2005 for which he wrote the script. Although sharing the same title, the movie is more autobiographical than the book. The film was released at various dates throughout the world in 2005 and 2006.
Kertész and his wife currently reside in Berlin.
Vasvári, Louise O., and Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven, eds. Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2009.http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/comparativeculturalstudies.html
Molnár, Sára. "Nobel in Literature 2002 Imre Kertész's Aesthetics of the Holocaust," CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 5.1 (2003)http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol5/iss1/5/
Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. "And the 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature Goes to Imre Kertész, Jew and Hungarian," CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 5.1 (2003)http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol5/iss1/6/
Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. "Imre Kertész's Nobel Prize, Public Discourse, and the Media," CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 7.4 (2005)http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb05-4/totosy05.html
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
Jewish author, Holocaust concentration camp survivor, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
in 2002 "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history".
Biography
He was born on 9 November 1929 in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)
The Kingdom of Hungary also known as the Regency, existed from 1920 to 1946 and was a de facto country under Regent Miklós Horthy. Horthy officially represented the abdicated Hungarian monarchy of Charles IV, Apostolic King of Hungary...
. At the age of 14 he was deported with other Hungarian Jews during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and was later sent to Buchenwald.
Kertész' best-known work, Fatelessness (Sorstalanság), describes the experience of fifteen-year-old György (George) Köves in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz
Zeitz
Zeitz is a town in the Burgenlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river Weiße Elster, in the middle of the triangle of the federal states Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Saxony.-History:...
. Some have interpreted the book as quasi-autobiographical
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, but the author disavows a strong biographical connection. His writings translated into English include Kaddish for a Child Not Born (Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért) and Liquidation (Felszámolás). Kertész initially found little appreciation for his writing in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and moved to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Kertész started translating German works into Hungarian—such as The Birth of Tragedy
The Birth of Tragedy
The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music is a 19th-century work of dramatic theory by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It was reissued in 1886 as The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism ...
by Nietzsche, the plays of Dürrenmatt, Schnitzler
Schnitzler
There have been several people named Schnitzler :* Barbara Schnitzler , a German actress * Claude Schnitzler , an Alsatian-French organist * Conrad Schnitzler * Dierk H...
and Tankred Dorst
Tankred Dorst
Tankred Dorst is a German playwright and storyteller.Tankred Dorst currently lives and works in Munich. His farces, parables, one-act-plays and adaptations are inspired by the theatre of the absurd and the works of Ionesco, Giraudoux and Beckett...
, the thoughts of Wittgenstein—and did not publish another novel until the late 1980s. He continues to write in Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
and submits his works to publishers in Hungary.
A film
Fateless (film)
Fateless is a film directed by Lajos Koltai, released in 2005. It was based on the semi-autobiographical novel Fatelessness by the Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész, who wrote the screenplay. It is the story of a teenage boy who is sent to concentration camps at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz.Its...
based on his novel Fatelessness was made in Hungary in 2005 for which he wrote the script. Although sharing the same title, the movie is more autobiographical than the book. The film was released at various dates throughout the world in 2005 and 2006.
Kertész and his wife currently reside in Berlin.
Works
- Fateless (Sorstalanság) (1975). English Translations:
- Fateless, 1992 (ISBN 0-8101-1049-0 and ISBN 0-8101-1024-5),
- Fatelessness, 2004 (ISBN 1-4000-7863-6)
- A nyomkereső (The Pathseeker) (1977)
- Detektívtörténet (A Detective Story) (1977)
- A kudarc (The Failure) (1988)
- Fiasco, 2011 (ISBN 1-9355-5429-8)
- Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekértKaddis a meg nem született gyermekértKaddish for an Unborn Child is a novel by Imre Kertész, first published in 1990 .The novel deals with the struggles of a Holocaust survivor after the war, explaining to a friend why he cannot bring a child into a world that could allow such atrocities to happen...
(1990). English Translations: - Kaddish for an Unborn Child (translated by Tim Wilkinson), 2004, ISBN 1-4000-7862-8
- Kaddish for a Child Not Born (translated by Christopher C. Wilson and Katharina M. Wilson), 1999, ISBN 0-8101-1161-6
- Az angol lobogó (The Union Jack) (1991)
- Gályanapló (Galley Boat-Log) (1992)
- A holocaust mint kultúra: három előadás (The Holocaust As Culture: Three Lectures) (1993)
- Jegyzőkönyv (The Minutes of Meeting) (1993)
- Valaki más : a változás krónikája (Someone Other: The Cronicle of the Changing) (1997)
- A gondolatnyi csend, amíg a kivégzőosztag újratölt (A Breath-long Silence, While the Fire Squad is Reloading Their Guns) (1998)
- A száműzött nyelv (A Language in Exile) (2001)
- Felszámolás (Liquidation) (2003)
- K. dosszié (File "K.") (2006)
- Európa nyomasztó öröksége (Europe's Depressing Heritage) (2008)
Works of Imre Kertész in English
- Fatelessness (translated by Tim Wilkinson), New York: Knopf, 2004.
- Fateless (translated by Christopher C. Wilson and Katharina M. Wilson), Northwestern University PressNorthwestern University PressNorthwestern University Press is the university press of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA.- History :Northwestern University Press was founded in 1893, at first specializing in legal periodicals. Today, the Press publishes scholarly books of fiction, non-fiction, and literary...
, 1992, ISBN 0810110490 - Kaddish for an Unborn Child (translated by Tim Wilkinson), Vintage, 2004. ISBN 1400078628
- Kaddish for a Child Not Born (translated by Christopher C. Wilson and Katharina M. Wilson), Evanston, IllinoisEvanston, IllinoisEvanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
: Hydra Books, 1997, ISBN 0810111616 - Liquidation (translated by Tim Wilkinson, Knopf, 2004, ISBN 1400041538
- Detective Story (translated by Tim Wilkinson), Harvill Secker, 2008, ISBN 1846551838
- The Pathseeker (translated by Tim Wilkinson), Melville House PublishingMelville House PublishingMelville House Publishing is an independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 by the husband and wife team of Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians in Hoboken, New Jersey, a location Johnson jokingly called "the Left Bank" of New York City...
, 2008, ISBN 978-1-933633-53-4 - The Union Jack (translated by Tim Wilkinson), Melville House PublishingMelville House PublishingMelville House Publishing is an independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 by the husband and wife team of Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians in Hoboken, New Jersey, a location Johnson jokingly called "the Left Bank" of New York City...
, 2010, ISBN 978-1-933633-87-9 - Fiasco (translated by Tim Wilkinson), Melville House PublishingMelville House PublishingMelville House Publishing is an independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 by the husband and wife team of Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians in Hoboken, New Jersey, a location Johnson jokingly called "the Left Bank" of New York City...
, 2011, ISBN 978-1-935554-29-5
Works about Kertész
Vasvári, Louise O., and Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven, eds. Imre Kertész and Holocaust Literature. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2005.http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/comparativeculturalstudies.htmlVasvári, Louise O., and Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven, eds. Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2009.http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/comparativeculturalstudies.html
Molnár, Sára. "Nobel in Literature 2002 Imre Kertész's Aesthetics of the Holocaust," CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 5.1 (2003)http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol5/iss1/5/
Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. "And the 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature Goes to Imre Kertész, Jew and Hungarian," CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 5.1 (2003)http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol5/iss1/6/
Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. "Imre Kertész's Nobel Prize, Public Discourse, and the Media," CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 7.4 (2005)http://clcwebjournal.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb05-4/totosy05.html
External links
- Article on Kertész
- The Last Word - an interview with Kertész from Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: "Forget You Not"
- Imre Kertész—Nobel Lecture
- B.-ing There, a review of the novel Liquidation by Ben Ehrenreich, Village Voice, December 20, 2004