Kaddish For A Child Not Born
Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1999. Paperback Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing. Trade paperback. [4], 95, [5] pages. Minor cover soiling. Originally published in Hungarian under the title Kaddis a meg nem szvuletett gyermekert, Budapest, 1990. English translation copyright 1997 at time of hardcover publication. A middle-aged writer and Holocaust survivor explains to a friend why he cannot bring a child into a world that allows such horrors as the Holocaust. Imre Kertész (9 November 1929 – 31 March 2016) was a Hungarian author and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history". He was the first Hungarian to win the Nobel in Literature. His works deal with themes of the Holocaust (he was a survivor of a German concentration camp), dictatorship and personal freedom. During World War II, Kertész was deported in 1944 at the age of 14 with other Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and was later sent to Buchenwald. Upon his arrival at the camps, Kertész claimed to be a 16-year old worker, thus saving him from the instant extermination that awaited a 14-year-old. After his camp was liberated in 1945, Kertész returned to Budapest, graduated from high school in 1948, and then went on to find work as a journalist and translator. Following on from Fatelessness, Kertész's Fiasco (1988) and Kaddish for an Unborn Child (1990) are, respectively, the second and third parts of his Holocaust trilogy. His writings translated into English include Kaddish for an Unborn Child and Liquidation, the latter set during the period of Hungary's evolution into a democracy from communist rule. The book deals with the narrator's failed marriage, his unsuccessful literary career, and the concept of his Jewishness. The first word in this mesmerizing novel by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is “No.” It is how the novel’s narrator, a middle-aged Hungarian-Jewish writer, answers an acquaintance who asks him if he has a child. It is the answer he gave his wife (now ex-wife) years earlier when she told him that she wanted one. The loss, longing and regret that haunt the years between those two “no”s give rise to one of the most eloquent meditations ever written on the Holocaust. As Kertesz’s narrator addresses the child he couldn’t bear to bring into the world he ushers readers into the labyrinth of his consciousness, dramatizing the paradoxes attendant on surviving the catastrophe of Auschwitz. Kaddish for the Unborn Child is a work of staggering power, lit by flashes of perverse wit and fueled by the energy of its wholly original voice. Condition: Very good / No dust jacket issued.
Keywords: Holocaust, Survival, Auschwitz, Jews, Anti-Semitism, Marriage, Disappointment, Middle-aged, Writer, Concentration Camp
ISBN: 0810111616
[Book #85145]
Price: $35.00