Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Imre Kertesz's mesmerizing novel is a tale of identity and memory -- the story of a middle-aged man taking stock of his life in the ever-present shadow of the Holocaust. The story unfolds at a writer's retreat as the narrator, a middle-aged survivor of the Holocaust, tries to explain to a friend that he cannot bring a child into a world where the Holocaust occurred and could occur again. In an intricate narrative, we learn of the narrator's myriad disappointments: his unsuccessful literary career, his failed marriage, his ex-wife's new family and children -- children that could have been his own. Kaddish for a Child Not Born is a deeply introspective, poetic, yet unsentimental work.
About the Author
Imre Kertesz is the winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize for Literature. Born in Hungary in 1929, he is one of the country's most successful postwar writers. Imprisoned in Auschwitz as a youth, Kertesz worked as a journalist and wrote musical plays to support himself before publishing Fateless, his first novel, in 1975. He is the author of Looking for a Clue, Detective Story, The British Flag, and Gallery-Diary 1961-1991.