Imre Kertész received the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2002. The Swedish Academy’s choice came as a surprise to many and in various ways the general public, critics, and scholars were taken unawares. In particular, the English-speaking world knew little to nothing about Kertész’s work at the time, and even now, after his death in 2016, he is far from being a household name.
Kertész was born in on November 9th 1929 in Budapest into a secularized middle-class Hungarian Jewish family. His parents were László (1900-?), whose father Adolf (1863-1928) changed his surname from Klein in 1916, and Aranka Jakab (1902-1991). His parents divorced in 1936. Although in some of his texts there are references to an unhappy childhood, his family background, and early schooling, little has been
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Citation: Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven. "Imre Kertész". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 January 2008; last revised 15 June 2018. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11921, accessed 21 November 2024.]
