Nobel Prize for Imre Kertesz (Hungary)

NOBEL PRIZE (2002)

IMRE KERTESZ (HUNGARY)

The Swedish Academy announced the Nobel Prize for Literature this year to Imre Kertesz of Hungary (a Jew) who suffered in the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz and Buschenwald during the Second World War. He narrates the horrors through the protagonist in his novel “FATELESS”, “which is an eloquent testimony to the human spirit in our inhuman world and an unforgettable, powerful, illuminating literary achievement”. The Swedish Academy said that his writing upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history. The refusal to compromise in Kertesz’s stance can be perceived clearly in his style, which is reminiscent of a thicket hawthorn hedge, dense and thorny for understanding visitors.

His other works include ‘The Pathfinder’, ‘Fiasco’, ‘The Exiled Language’, ‘The Holocaust as a culture’ and ‘Moments of Silence’. He was a recipient of Brandenburg Literary prize, the Liepzieger Literary prize and the Weide Literary prize.