Fateless
1st Edition
Published on 4. September 2008
272 pages
978-1-4070-7222-7 (ISBN)
Description
'While the average reader cannot pretend truly to understand the reality of those who suffered in concentration camps, Kertesz draws us one step closer' Observer
Gyuri, a fourteen-year-old Hungarian Jew, gets the day off school to witness his father signing over the family timber business - his final act before being sent to a labour camp. Two months later, Gyuri finds himself assigned to a 'permanent workplace'. This is the start of his journey to Auschwitz.
On his arrival Gyuri finds that he is unable to identify with other Jews, and is rejected by them. An outsider among his own people, his estrangement makes him a preternaturally acute observer, dogmatically insisting on making sense of the barbarity - and beauty - he witnesses.
Gyuri, a fourteen-year-old Hungarian Jew, gets the day off school to witness his father signing over the family timber business - his final act before being sent to a labour camp. Two months later, Gyuri finds himself assigned to a 'permanent workplace'. This is the start of his journey to Auschwitz.
On his arrival Gyuri finds that he is unable to identify with other Jews, and is rejected by them. An outsider among his own people, his estrangement makes him a preternaturally acute observer, dogmatically insisting on making sense of the barbarity - and beauty - he witnesses.
Reviews / Votes
Moving and numbing...a very great novel - Irish Times Remarkable...an original and chilling quality -New York Review of Books [T]his work...ought to stand beside Primo Levi's If This is a Man - The Times Extraordinary - Observer Should be savoured slowly . . . Only through exploring its subtlety and detail will the reader come to appreciate such an ornate and honest testimony to the human spirit * Washington Times * A masterly, subtle and constantly surprising novel * Sunday Times * While the average reader cannot pretend truly to understand the reality for those who suffered in concentration camps, Kertesz draws us one step closer -- Susannah Steven * Observer, Books of the Week * [The] crisp new translation still has an extraordinary power to shock -- Elena Seymenliyska * Guardian *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
File size
3,77 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-4070-7222-7 (9781407072227)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
Imre Kertesz was born in 1929 in Budapest. As a youth, he was imprisoned in Auschwitz and later in Buchenwald. He worked as a journalist and playwright before publishing Fateless, his first novel, in 1975. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002. Imre Kertesz died in Budapest in March 2016
