Born in Budapest in 1929, Imre Kertesz was imprisoned at Auschwitz in 1944, and then at Bunchenwald concentration camp. After the war and repatriation, the Soviet seizure of Hungary ended Kertesz's brief career as a journalist. He turned to translation, specializing in German language works, and later emigrated to Berlin. Kertesz was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002 for ""writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.""
Praise for Imre Kertész ""...An enormous effort to understand and find a language for what the Holocaust says about the human condition."" —George Szirtes, Times Literary Supplement ""...Searching and visionary beyond the usual parameters."" —Sven Birkets, Bookforum ""In explaining something of the weight and importance of Kertesz's subjects and creative achievements, it is hard to convey simultaneously the deftness and vivacity of his writing....There is something quintessentially youthful and life-affirming in this writer's sensibility..."" —Ruth Scurr, The Nation “Kertész's work is a profound meditation on the great and enduring themes of love, death and the problem of evil, although for Kertész, it's not evil that is the problem but good.” —John Banville, author of The Sea