Imre Kertesz
Imre Kertesz
Imre Kertészwas 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 Nazi Holocaust, dictatorship and personal freedom. He died on 31 March 2016, aged 86, at his home in Budapest after suffering from Parkinson's disease for several years...
NationalityHungarian
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth9 November 1929
I was interned in Auschwitz for one year. I didn't bring back anything, except for a few jokes, and that filled me with shame. Then again, I didn't know what to do with this fresh experience. For this experience was no literary awakening, no occasion for professional or artistic introspection.
I came from two harsh dictatorships, Nazi and Stalinist. I never thought of becoming a writer as such, yet in a lucid moment, I recognised what I had to do.
Modern life is organised so that you benefit at the expense of the other, and the most extreme example of that is a camp.
It is often said of me - some intend it as a compliment, others as a complaint - that I write about a single subject: the Holocaust. I have no quarrel with that. Why shouldn't I accept, with certain qualifications, the place assigned to me on the shelves of libraries?
...I would like to live a little bit longer in this beautiful concentration camp.
Talking is not enough; words don't clarify anything. I'll have to hit upon something, but what?
There's just one revolution that I can take seriously, and that's a police revolution.
One cannot start a new life, you can only continue the old one.
I refuse to adapt or integrate myself.
I tried to depict the human face of this history, I wanted to write a book that people would actually want to read.
I look on my life as raw material for my novels: that's just the way I am, and it frees me from any inhibitions.
Nonexistence. The society of the nonexistent. In the street yesterday a nonexistent person trod on my foot with his nonexistent foot.
I am sick of atrocities, though these are now the natural order of our world. And I would still like to act!
Of course, living is another way of killing oneself: its drawback is that it takes so horribly long.