Imre Kertész

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Imre Kertész in Szeged , 2007

Imre Kertész [ ˈimrɛ ˈkɛrte: s ] (born November 9, 1929 in Budapest ; died March 31, 2016 there ) was a Hungarian writer of Jewish descent . In 2002 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature .

biography

Imre Kertész was born in Budapest on November 9, 1929. Because of his Jewish ancestry, he was fourteen years old in July 1944 (during a against Miklós Horthy directed police coup in Budapest) through Auschwitz in the Buchenwald concentration camp and its satellite camps will in Tröglitz / Rehmsdorf in Zeitz deported. After his liberation on April 11, 1945, he returned to Budapest.

After graduating from high school in 1948, Kertész found a job as a journalist for the daily Világosság from 1949 to 1950 , which he had to give up again as it was declared a communist party organ . He then worked first in a factory and then in the press department of the Ministry of Mechanical Engineering and Metallurgy.

At the end of 1951, Kertész was called up for military service. I.a. he worked as a guard in a military prison. He escaped from this position by feigning a nervous breakdown. After that he was employed in the Army Film Institute.

After his discharge from military service in 1953, Kertész began working as a freelance writer in Budapest. At first, however, he only made a living by writing texts for musicals and plays, which he does not count among his literary work.

In 1953 Kertész met his future wife Albina Vas, whom he married in 1960 and with whom he lived until her death in 1995.

From 1960 to 1973 Kertész worked on his first novel Fatelessness (1975, Hungarian. Original title: Sorstalanság ; German 1990: Mensch ohne Schicksal , 1996: Novel of a Fateless ), which is one of the most important works on the Holocaust and which established his fame . In the novel, Kertész apparently describes the experience of his camp imprisonment in 1944/1945, but it is easy to see that the text differs significantly from a conventional camp novel and that it actually addresses Kertész's development as a future author since the mid-1950s. The manuscript was initially rejected in 1973 by the Magvető publishing house because of its offensive content. In 1975 the novel was finally published by Szépirodalmi because, contrary to expectations, he had received two positive reviews there. A "basic edition" of 5000 copies was printed, of which only very few were available in stores. It was not until the second edition from 1985 that it became well known in Hungary. However, Kertész was able to publish regularly after a lack of luck. 1976 his early story appeared Earthlings and pilgrims , in 1977 , the trackers along with detective story in 1978, the story , the Bank , in 1985 the "Prologue" of his second great novel fiasco , 1988 fiasco and in 1990 his last written before the turn novel Kaddish for an Unborn Child . After the publication of Fatelessness in 1975, Kertész was also able to earn money with translations. Among others, he transferred works by Friedrich Nietzsche , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Arthur Schnitzler , Sigmund Freud , Joseph Roth , Elias Canetti , Tankred Dorst , Walter E. Richartz , Volker W. Degener , Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Ludwig Wittgenstein .

A broader reception of his work outside of Hungary only began after the change in the political system in 1989 (although the critic Eva Haldimann had been writing reviews of his Hungarian publications in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung since March 1977 ). His works have been translated into many languages ​​and it was the first time he had a larger audience. In addition to other stories and novels, in which he deals with the new living conditions after the fall of the Wall, he has also written speeches and essays since 1990 in which he reflects in particular "on the ethical and cultural significance of the Holocaust". He gained general fame through Christina Viragh's new translation of the novel of a fateful person by Sorstalanság , which was published by Rowohlt Berlin in 1996 .

In 1996, Kertész married the Hungarian-born American Magda Ambrus-Sass. He had already met her in October 1990 at an evening party organized by the critic Sándor Radnóti .

In 2001, Kertész first moved to work in Berlin and then lived permanently in Berlin with his wife. In 2002/2003 he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin , from which he received funding to complete his novel Liquidation .

In October 2002 Kertész was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature .

In connection with his play Csacsifogat ( Donkey Cart ) from the 1950s (which Kertész does not count among his literary work), a former friend, the author and dissident Pál Bán , had brought against him a plagiarism allegation . Kertész contradicted this allegation, which was published in the newspaper Soproni Ász on November 14, 2002. In a diary entry from November 17, he comments on the attack directed against him immediately after the Nobel Prize: “The grotesque that accompanies my life. [...] it affects me more than necessary. "

On October 3, 2003, at the invitation of the state government of Saxony-Anhalt, Kertész gave the keynote address for the central celebration of German reunification in Magdeburg.

On January 29, 2007, Kertész was a guest speaker in the German Bundestag on the occasion of the official commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. As part of the memorial hour for the day of commemoration of the victims of National Socialism , he read from his novel Kaddisch for an unborn child .

In November 2012, the Imre Kertész archive was presented to the public in the Berlin Academy of the Arts . Kertész had given the archive manuscripts and correspondence since the end of 2001. The Berlin lawyer Ingo Fessmann, who was friends with Kertész (who has also been promoting various people and institutions since 1997 to propose Kertész for the Nobel Prize) played a key role in this transaction . More extensive material followed in 2011. In 2012, the Academy acquired the holdings it had on file with the support of the Friede Springer Foundation, the State Cultural Foundation and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

In November 2012, Kertész moved back to Budapest because of his progressive Parkinson's disease: “I have Parkinson's, otherwise I would never have come back.” In fact, he was critical of his home country. In 1990 he left the Hungarian Writers' Association, on which he also wrote a polemical essay in 2004 on the occasion of anti-Semitic incidents that caused a large wave of resignations. He continued to express himself critical of Hungary in two interviews in 2009. However, when he was nominated by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for the Order of St. Stephen in 2014 , he accepted this highest Hungarian state award despite the risk of political appropriation of himself because he saw it Need to create a "consensus" in his country.

Kertész's last book publications are the diary novel Last Einkehr from 2014 (German 2015), which Kertész himself described as the end of his work, and the diary volume Der Viewer. Notes 1991–2001 , on which he worked until shortly before his death and which was published in Hungarian by Magvető on March 10, 2016 while he was still alive (German 2016).

Imre Kertész died on March 31, 2016. His grave is on the Kerepesi temető in the 8th district of Budapest .

At the end of 2016, it became known that shortly before her death (on September 8), Kertész's widow had bequeathed the rights to his estate to a Hungarian government-affiliated foundation. This founded the Imre Kertész Institute ( Kertész Imre Intézet ) at the beginning of 2017 , at which his posthumous manuscripts are to be prepared for publication. The head of the institute is Kertész's former friend and lecturer Zoltán Hafner . A legal dispute over copyrights was finally decided in favor of the Budapest Kertész Institute in early 2019.

plant

Narrative

Fatelessness tetralogy

The Fateless together with fiasco , Kaddish for an Unborn Child and liquidation a so-called "tetralogy of Fatelessness". However, Kertész himself relativizes this categorization of his great novels into a cycle in his autobiographical dialogue novel Dossier K. from 2006, in which one of his two alter egos says: “Trilogy, tetralogy: that doesn't mean anything for me. I only ever wrote the novel that I was writing […]. In an Adorno paraphrase: After Auschwitz it is no longer possible to write cycles of novels. ”However, he also“ has no objection ”if this“ organically ”created structure is characterized in this way.

"Novel of a Fateless"

Kertész worked on his first novel Sorstalanság ( Fatelessness ), for the plot of which he used his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, from 1960 to 1973. The manuscript was rejected in 1973 by the state publisher Magvető. After it was published by Szépirodalmi in 1975 - the only other possible publisher according to Kertész - the book was hushed up for a long time. It was only after György Spiró had published an article on Kertész's first work in the magazine Élet és Irodalom ( Life and Literature ) in 1983 that the second Hungarian edition of 1985 brought the novel due recognition. In German, the novel was initially published in the translation Mensch ohne Schicksal by Jörg Buschmann (Rütten and Loening, 1990). However, it was only the new translation of the novel of a fateful person by Christina Viragh (Rowohlt Berlin, 1996) that became known.

When Sorstalanság was rejected in 1973 on the grounds that Kertész allegedly came "too late" with "" this topic "" (Auschwitz), he replied in the diary: "When I think of a new novel, I only think of Auschwitz again." However, this does not mean that Sorstalanság is autobiographical in the simple sense of the word, as a superficial reading might suggest. Kertész himself notes that although he used an autobiographical form, he did not write an autobiographical text: “The most autobiographical thing” about the novel is that there is “nothing autobiographical about it”. His diary entries accompanying the work on the novel suggest that the narrative labor service is an allegory for his exemplary “work on himself” (in the sense of Thomas Mann), which he performed as a future author in Budapest after his liberation from the camp. Because of the spiritual liberation through which he existentially appropriated his life, he distinguishes himself from the typical “functional person” who allows himself to be guided ideologically and thus misses the “existential experience of his life” or remains “without his own fate”. As a writer, on the other hand, he sees himself as someone who tries to interpret his personal experiences on his own responsibility, at least "not accepting the language and the finished terms" despite all the constraints of the situation. " : "" Novel of a Fatelessness "- as a possible title [...]. But what do I call fate? Definitely the possibility of tragedy. The extreme determination, however, the stigmatization that presses our life into a situation given by totalitarianism, into an absurdity, thwarts this possibility: If we experience the determination imposed on us as reality instead of a necessity resulting from our own - relative - freedom, that's how I call it fateless. ”In his work notes, Kertész identifies Thomas Mann ( The Magic Mountain , Doctor Faustus ) and Albert Camus ( The Stranger ) as important models for the work on Sorstalanság . In the novel itself he apparently alludes to Thomas Mann with the figure of a nameless German prisoner with an “artist's cap” and “razor crease”. Furthermore, in the novel, the prisoner Bandi Citrom, who is a kind of mentor for the narrator György Köves in the camp, can be seen as a counterpart to Camus.

The book was made into a film by Lajos Koltai in 2003-2004 under the title Sorstalanság (Eng. Fateless ). The German version was presented at the 2005 Berlinale . The film is based on the script Sorstalanság. Filmforgatókönyv , 2001 (German step by step , 2002) by Kertész.

"Fiasco"

The two-part novel A kudarc (part 1 published in the magazine of the Hungarian Writers' Union Kortárs No. 2, 1983; published in full in 1988 by Szépirodalmi; Eng .: fiasco , 1999) is a self-portrayal of Kertesz both with regard to his current literary work and his early work Attempts to write or his associated intellectual development. In the first part, the "old man", who has already published several books (equivalent to the novel of a fateful person from 1975 and a volume with the stories The Tracker and Detective Story from 1977) and who otherwise makes a living with translations, prepares to write one new novel. The second part of Fiasko consists of this novel . In it, Kertész uses the character Steinig (Hungarian: Köves, a namesake of the boy from the novel of a fateful man ) to describe his development into a responsible person and an artistic author. In a diary note from 1994 he remarks about the "title fiasco " that the "failure" addressed with it refers to the fact that the protagonist of the novel actually "wants to lose his self", but then not to the "fate sketched in the introductory part" can escape the old to live as a responsible individual. Correspondingly, in the course of an existential experience, Steinig recognizes that he has to withdraw from the seductive “pull” of mass society and save himself like a “drowning man”.

"Kaddish for an Unborn Child"

In the novel Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért , 1990 ( Eng . Kaddish for an unborn child , 1992) Kertész deals with the lasting consequences of the Shoah and (spiritual) survival after Auschwitz. Kaddish is the title of a prayer the Jews say for their dead. Corresponds to this in Kertész's novel the monologue of the writer and Holocaust survivor B., who does not want to bring any new "life" into the world after Auschwitz and instead tries to create a "spiritual form of existence" as an author by passing on his life experience to posterity. to realize. This is “nothing more than an explanation, an accumulation of explanations” - in his case: for “Auschwitz”.

"Liquidation"

In the novel Felszámolás , 2003 (German: Liquidation , 2003), Kertész describes how the young generation in Hungary is confronted with the historical legacy of Auschwitz after the fall of the Wall "and cannot do anything with it". A characteristic representative of that generation is the figure of the nihilistic and cultureless lecturer Keserű, whose name identifies him as a bitter person (Hungarian: keserű = bitter). A formal peculiarity of Liquidation is that the role of the narrator is apparently taken over by different characters. However, there is significant evidence that the narrator is consistently identical to the suicide B. or Bé, an alter ego of Kertész ', who as a ghostly author like a ventriloquist from the mouths of various doll-like characters (and also as an unidentified, anonymous Narrator) speaks. This corresponds to the further peculiarity that , unlike all of Kertész's other novels , Liquidation is not based on real experiences. Rather, Kertész alias Bé creates a scenario of the future there, hypothetically transferring himself to the life of strangers (such as Keserű). Correspondingly, Bé left behind a play entitled »Liquidation«, from which some passages are quoted and whose plot is repeated in a mysterious way in the reality of the novel. Through the fictitious scenario written by Bé, Kertész motivates the contemporary reader to overcome the conformism and irresponsibility that were an essential condition for both Auschwitz and the communist dictatorship. He contrasts this widespread mentality with the ideal of a subcultural “solidarity” or “love”, which attitude would point a viable path into the future. The absence of Bé is emphasized in the liquidation by the fact that Keserű misses a mysterious "novel" in Bé's estate, which Bé's former wife Judit is said to have burned. This novel is apparently a symbol of the life or biographical memory of Kertész. The reader can thus see himself asked to make new experiences himself and to shape his life on this basis independently. In this regard, Kertész gives a concrete reference right at the beginning of the novel by alluding to the Kosovo war of 1999, in which Hungary was also involved as a new member of NATO : “Recently - […], just in the early spring of 1999, on a sunny morning - Reality was a problematic term for Keserű, but what is even worse, it has become a problematic state . ”In the 1999 essay Will Europe Resurrect? : “It was peace. But in the last week of March, the continent woke up to the roar of planes and bombs. ”He advocates fighting for European values ​​as part of the NATO mission and overcoming or liquidating the mentality that had made the totalitarian dictatorships possible.

stories

One of the earliest texts received by Kertész is the short story Világpolgár és zarándok , 1976 (German Earthlings and Pilgrims , 2005) , written in the late 1950s . It is a retelling of the biblical story of Cain and Abel . According to Kertész, the characters Cain (earthly citizen) and Abel (pilgrim) were inspired by Augustine 's writing De civitate Dei (The State of God ). Augustine distinguishes Cain as the founder of a secular state from Abel, who did not establish a state. Kertész evidently identifies himself as an artist with the latter figure. Another text from this period is the fragment Èn, a hóhér ( Eng . I, the executioner ), which Kertész integrated into the novel Fiasko . With this monological pamphlet of a fictional political criminal, he parodies the "pompous and paradoxical confessions of the Nazi war criminals, as they were published in large numbers at the time". A biographical reference can also be seen here. Kertész notes that the figure of the executioner goes back to his own work as a guard in a military prison at the beginning of the 1950s: “It was not Auschwitz - what I endured - that made me a writer, but the military prison - the situation of the executioner, the perpetrator * [ * in the original German ]. "

In 1977 Kertész published the volume A nyomkereső ( The Tracer ) with two short prose texts in Hungary . In the cover story (German 1999), the protagonist known from the novel “A Fateless Man” - here: the guest or the emissary - starts this journey again thirty years after his deportation to the Buchenwald concentration camp. The reunion of the historical places turns out to be fruitless. Eva Haldimann, an important critic for Kertész, wrote in 1977: “The seeker pursues the horrific past, which he tries in vain to conjure up. Nothing has stayed the same, the experience has withered; yes, even the visitor has to realize that the past has become silent in him too. ”However, the emissary suddenly reached his“ goal ”when he discovered a sign of the enduring totalitarian conditions in the current cityscape of Weimar: this is how he becomes attention to the predominant color “yellow”, which Kertész is clearly using here as a symbol of oppression and disenfranchisement. The second short novel in this volume, Detektívtörténet (German detective story , 2004), is set in South America and describes the mechanism of terror from the perspective of a member of the political police. The two main characters, the apolitical merchant Federigo Salinas and his idealistic son Enrique, can be interpreted as an allegory of world literature and individual literary work, like the timber merchant László Köves and his son György, who was deported to Buchenwald, in the novel of a fateful man . The story A pad , 1978 (German: Die Bank , 2005) also dates from the late 1970s . There Kertész describes how a young Budapest journalist refused to be loyal to the line that was expected of him during Stalinism. After an agonizing phase of superficial adjustment, he finally decides to report to his editorial office "- for the first time in a long time - again in sick", which gives him a "ludicrous relief". The trigger for this is that one night he was chatting intensely on a bench with a bar pianist who was afraid of being deported and who therefore spends the nights outside. Although the latter motif goes back to an actual encounter between Kertész and a Budapest jazz pianist, one can easily see that Kertész's fictional conversation alludes to his reading of Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain in 1954, which is also on a park bench nearby took place in his former apartment on Törökstraße. From this novel he apparently took over the motif of the liberating "illness" (as well as the motif of the liberating "death" in the novel of a fateless person ).

Shortly after 1989, Kertész reported in the two stories Budapest, Bécs, Budapest , 1990 (German Budapest, Vienna, Budapest , 2001) and Jegyzőkönyv , 1991 (German protocol , 1991, new translation 1994) of his first experiences with the new freedom of travel and the z. Partly still repressive Hungarian bureaucracy. Especially the latter text, which deals with a harassing customs control and was intended more as casual work, was a great success in Hungary. In the autobiographical dialogue novel Dossier K. from 2006, Kertész writes about this: “I just wanted to free myself from the shameful experience.” “In any case, the novella hit like a bomb; In the year of publication Mihály Kornis performed the text as a monodrama on the literary stage of the József-Katona-Theater, Péter Esterházy wrote a brother novella about it, both stories appeared soon afterwards, both in Hungarian and in German, together in a narrow volume and also came in circulation as a so-called audio book on cassettes. […] If I take the narrative back from the sphere of daily topicality and incorporate it into the series of my works, then I have to call this novella today the starting point for my reconsideration, the result of a first look around in the new situation. The first astonishment… . ”In the further story Az angol lobogó , 1991 ( Eng . The English flag , 1999), Kertész repeats in condensed form the transformation of the protagonist from a 'journalist' to a 'factory worker' and finally in the second part of the fiasco to the artistic ›author‹.

Autobiographical writings

"Galley diary"

In 1992 Kertész published the diary volume Gályanapló (German galley diary , 1993), which covers the years 1961–1991. The work, declared as a novel, is a diary in a literarily prepared, edited form. In this “galley work of self-documentation” Kertész investigates questions of the determinism and freedom of the individual as well as the lost possibility of his development in a totalitarian world. In addition to personal experiences, he documents his engagement with a large number of philosophical and literary authors of world literature who were each relevant to his own work ( Kant , Schopenhauer , Nietzsche , Freud , Ortega , Camus , Sartre , Adorno , Kafka , Thomas Mann , Márai , Beckett among others).

"I - another"

The diary novel Valaki más. A változás krónikája , 1997 ( Eng . I - Another , 1998) is a kind of continuation of the galley diary for the years 1991–1995, in which Kertész's life changed fundamentally. On the one hand, Kertész describes how his prison life in socialist Hungary turned into a restless nomadic life with trips and scholarship stays abroad. On the other hand, he indicates in the entries since 1992 a beginning love affair with his second wife Magda (in the novel: M.), whom he married in 1996, shortly after the death of his first wife Albina. The novel ends with Albina's (or: As) death in autumn 1995. In view of these upheavals, the first-person narrator of the novel feels compelled to question his identity anew. In doing so, he assumes the position of an ineffable individual who generally defies objectification: “My only identity is that of writing”. As early as 1977, Kertész had noticed in the galley diary that by “writing” he was trying to overcome his “determinations” and “not appear as what I am”. In order to preserve his dignity, he now also refuses any collective identity, such as that as a Jew, “about whom one can talk in the plural, who is like the Jews in general, whose characteristics can be summarized in a compendium like the one not too complicated animal breed ”, but also an identification with his earlier personal existence:“ For a long time I have been looking for neither home nor identity. I'm different from them, different from the others, different from me. "

"Dossier K."

Dialogue Roman K. dosszié , 2006 (dt. Dossier K. An investigation , 2006) wrote Kertész 2004/2005 instead of an actually planned biography of his friend Zoltan Hafner / 2004 already extensive interviews had with him of 2003. The novel consists of a fictional self-talk in which two of Kertész's alter egos talk casually about his life and work. In a preliminary remark , Kertész explains that the book is “a real autobiography”: “If one follows Nietzsche's suggestion, which derives the novel from the Platonic Dialogues , then the reader actually has a novel in hand.” In an interview on the occasion of the publication of the novel, Kertész draws attention to the fact that the artistic form in particular enables a special authenticity. When he wrote about his imprisonment in a concentration camp, he said: “If I want to survive in a concentration camp, I have to follow his logic. This willful or unwilling collaboration is the survivor's greatest disgrace, he cannot admit it. The writer can. Because literature has a particular sincerity. These are just good sentences, you know. In this case, good sentences are much more important than my own shame. "

"Last stop"

On the occasion of Kertész's 80th birthday, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung printed the opening chapter of a piece of prose he was still working on on November 7, 2009: The last stop - Doctor Sonderberg (Hungarian. Original: A végső kocsma. In: Múlt és jövő. No. 3, 2009). Similar to the self-talk in Dossier K. , the protagonist Sonderberg is related to a second figure, the reporting narrator, who reproduces Sonderberg's statements. Sonderberg reflects on the biblical story of Lot and his flight from Sodom , for which he wants to write a retelling from his own, contemporary perspective. He sees the main sin of the Sodomites not in their sexual misconduct, but in their conformism, which undermines all rationality and responsibility. Apparently there is a reference to the decision made by Kertész in 2001 to move the center of his life from Budapest to Berlin. Accordingly, he expressed himself in the two interviews by Tilman Krause , Anti-Semites have the say in Hungary and Hungary discussed the WELT interview by Imre Kertész (November 5th / 10th, 2009, Die Welt ) critical of the cultural climate in his home country and stresses that he himself wants to stay away from all national or racial communities. As his early work notes show, he has dealt with the Lot motif since the beginning of his literary activity. In a note from 2001 he describes it as “the first big idea or the first topic [s] of a young age”: “the Dionysian experience, the self-abandonment of the free individual in the intoxication of the mass ritual; this motif determined all of my later work [...], that is, the plot of all my later novels. "

In 2013 Kertész released the band Last Einkehr. Diaries 2001–2009 (or in 2011 the diaries 2001–2003 in Hungarian: Mentés másként / Save as ). The planned prose text The Last Einkehr was not completed, but is included as a fragment in the diary volume (albeit without the Sonderberg chapter published in the NZZ in 2009 ). In the diary Kertész describes his new life in the West, where he has a number of acquaintances with prominent artists (including Ligeti , Dorst , Barenboim ). He also reports on the completion of new novels ( Liquidation 2003, Dossier K. 2005) and the making of the film Fateless (2003–2005). It always seems that the literary fame after the Nobel Prize in 2002 (perhaps even more so than the intellectual isolation was once) was problematic for Kertész's creativity and that he had to fight hard to maintain it. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2000, which forced him to use a laptop as a writing instrument, was also stressful . His plan to write a fictional text runs through the entire book, which accompanies him in an autobiographical manner until his death, but in contrast to the diary, abstracts from personal details. He tried to combine the project of a final diary novel with a retelling of the story of Lot. On July 26, 2006 he noted: “This morning at five o'clock I came up with the question of how The Last Contemplation and The Lonely One of Sodom could be linked with one another; like Rilke linked the story of Malte Laurids Brigge with that of the prodigal son . A moral tale about guilt. I think it would be the only way to save both the Sodomer and the Einkehr , the only real possibility for a last book. ”He first carried out this idea in the diary novel Last Einkehr from 2014. With the Sonderberg chapter from 2009 and the diaries of 2013, the novel was practically already available in a scattered published form.

On the basis of the diaries, last Einkehr appeared in 2014 (German 2015) . A diary novel. (Orig .: A végső kocsma ), which Kertész describes in the dedication as the “coronation” of his (entire) “work”. It differs from the diaries in some abbreviations and the fact that data are largely dispensed with, but above all in the addition of the Sonderberg chapter towards the end of the text. The latter addition gives the diary passages a fictional character. They can now be interpreted as the story of Lot retold by Sonderberg, with the writer Imre Kertész, who wrote the diaries, becoming a fictional character in Sonderberg's Lot novel. A model for this construction, in which an autobiographical narrative is combined with a biblical story, is Rilke's novel The Notes of Malte Laurids Brigge , which ends with the fable of the prodigal son. This had fled from home (in Rilke's version of the story) because he could not bear the overwhelming love of his family. Analogous to this is Kertész's intellectual emigration, with which he ultimately also distanced himself from Western culture. So the notes in the diary novel end with the figure Lot sitting as a posthumous embodiment of Kertész on the terrace of the Berlin Hotel Kempinski (since December 2017: Hotel Bristol ) on Kurfürstendamm and thinking about his life in the West: “Dawn, [... ]. I imagine Lot sitting on the terrace of the Kempinski [...] and [...] beginning to speak softly: "Do you know what loneliness is in a city that is constantly celebrating itself?" [...] What does the western one mean Way of life, the western culture for him? "

"The viewer"

The diary A néző. Feljegyzések 1991–2001 , 2016 ( Eng . The Viewer . Notes 1991–2001 , 2016) is the continuation of the journal novel Galley Diary , which covers the years 1961–1991. It only appeared shortly before Kertéz's death, after the volume Last Einkehr. Diaries 2001–2009 (German first published in 2013) and the diary novel based on it, Last Einkehr (2014). In The Viewer , Kertész documents his life after the system change in Hungary up to the time immediately before he moved to Berlin. He portrayed some of this more or less encrypted in the novel Ich - Another from 1997. Furthermore, the notes in The Viewer contain theoretical reflections that Kertész adopted in his essayistic texts.

Essayistic texts

After the turn of 1989, Kertész also wrote essayistic texts for the first time, which were intended for daily reception. As in his narrative work, in his essays he reflects on European culture after Auschwitz and on the possible positioning of an artist in today's society. A selection of these speeches and essays from the years 1990–2004 is contained in the anthology Die exilierte Sprache from 2004. The collection of essays A gondolatnyi csend, amíg kivégzőosztag újratölt , 1998 ( Eng . A thought length of silence while the firing squad reloads , 1999) had already appeared in Hungary .

Artistic self-image

The basic motivation for Kertész's literary work was the experience of his deportation to Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944 as well as the experience that only a little later, while working as a guard in a military prison in the early 1950s, he fell into the "situation of the executioner, of the perpetrator ”. Both times he lost his responsibility as a free person and, like a “child”, lived through a “fate” that was “already determined and prescribed”. His entire work deals with this existence as a disenfranchised “functional person”, which not only affected him alone, but is a “problem of the century”: “It was all about finding the language for totalitarianism, a language that shows how one is ground into a mechanism and how people change so much that they no longer recognize themselves and their own lives. The functional person loses himself. I never wanted to be a great writer, I just always wanted to understand why people are like that. [...] That might sound strange. But all of my work is about the functional human being of the 20th century. [...] That I developed this functional person. I'm really proud of that. ”In addition, Kertész's work appears to be an exemplary testimony to how he was able to regain his“ personality ”stolen from“ history ”in the course of his artistic work and to existentially appropriate his life. In 1983 he wrote in his diary: “The immeasurable importance of the novel as a process in the course of which man regains his life. The so-called crisis of the novel does not come from the fact that the novel is not needed, but from the fact that the novelists are ignorant of their duties and are bunglers or charlatans. But a Proust , a Kafka , a Krúdy cannot be born at any point in time . But since it did exist, we need to know what the only possible subject of the novel is: the reconquest, the experience of life and that we are filled with it, for a single solemn moment before we perish. ”In 1988 he further explains there , his work should enable the reader to live in exactly the same way: “Art conveys experience, the experience of the world and its ethical consequences. Art gives existence to existence. In order to be an artist, we have to transform an existence inwardly, just as the person who receives the work of art has to transform an existence inwardly. We cannot be satisfied with less; and if this rite has any meaning, this meaning is to be sought here alone. "

"Exiled" or "atonal language"

Theodor W. Adorno (1964)
Arnold Schoenberg (around 1948)

In line with his self-image as an author who does not accept conventional language and the given terms, Kertész used a so-called “exiled language” in which his personal experience comes into its own. In doing so, he particularly contradicts the “totalitarian language” of official bodies, which induce people to blindly submit to an externally “imposed role” or “function” and thereby deny their own “personality”. As a “writer”, he opposed “ideology”, which is often legitimized by “theoretical intellectuals” through abstract “scientific considerations”, with concrete “human experience”: “I value experience far more than any theoretical seriousness.” In particular Experiences from Auschwitz or the post-Auschwitz world could not be described in a “pre-Auschwitz language” that still represented “the humanistic worldview of the nineteenth century”. Kertész also characterized the “post-Auschwitz language” that was required instead “with a technical term from music” as “atonal language”: “If we look at the tonality, the uniform key, as a generally recognized convention, then atonality declares it Invalidity of agreement, of tradition. In literature, too, there was once the keynote, a value system based on a generally recognized morality and ethics, which determined the network of relationships between sentences and thoughts. The few who attempted their existence to bear witness to the Holocaust knew exactly that [...] it was impossible for them to formulate their experiences in the pre-Auschwitz language. "

Kertész owed the concept of atonality to a reading of Adorno's musical writings, a selection of which appeared in Hungary in 1970. The essay Arnold Schönberg (1874–1951) contained therein should have been of particular interest to him . In this context he also referred to Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus , for which Mann was also inspired by Adorno's writings on Schönberg's musical twelve-tone technique .

Poetology

In his second novel Fiasko, Kertész already makes poetological statements that allow conclusions to be drawn about his artistic self-image. He describes the work begun by his youthful alter ego Steinig (Hungarian: Köves) as an “object” to be distilled from his “life”, which a later reader can pick up and examine “like a strange structure of nature”. This material work should only contain “the essentials” of his life experience (ie: the permanent, universally valid): “So from now on he would have to live with his gaze fixed on this being, he would see it for a long time, penetrating, amazed and incredulous contemplate [...] until he would finally recognize something in it that almost no longer belongs to this life, something that is tangible, aims at the essential, is indisputable and perfect like the catastrophes. ”In Kertész's third novel Kaddisch For an unborn child , the writer and translator B. tries in an analogous way to find a "spiritual form of existence" by rationalizing his life experience shaped by "Auschwitz" and passing this "knowledge" on to posterity. As such an author, he sees himself integrated into a spiritual tradition that he continues through his writing. He describes the “nature” of his “work” as: “Shoveling on at that grave that others began to dig into the air for me and then, simply because they had no more time to finish it, [...] to put the tool in my hand and let myself stand with it, so that I can complete the work they have started as best I can. "In the spirit of Paul Valéry, who created the specifically designed and given" poetic language " differs from the natural “language of everyday practice”, Kertész also remarks in Dossier K. with reference to certain misleading words in fatelessness (such as “hate”, “happiness” or “homesickness”): “In a novel, certain changes Words have their usual meaning ”, which means that they can live on as ciphers that require interpretation like a“ burning secret in the reader ”. In any case, “it is not the facts that are decisive, but what is added to the facts.” In an interview on the publication of Dossier K. he explains in more detail: “Every literary work is a construction. The language is added, as is the concept, you can add theoretical or scientific thoughts. ”Accordingly, his fictional writings require a demanding interpretation beyond the literal meaning (e.g. the“ hatred ”or the“ luck ”of Köves in fate should especially not be interpreted psychologically). This formal characteristic of his work served Kertész in turn to transcend his concrete situation and to inscribe himself away from the provincial discourses in the intellectual history or world literature , or, as he put it in his diary in 1979: in the "large, flowing narrative of people in which we are all looking for our place. "

Lines of tradition

Memorial plaque at Markt 19 (Weimar) Imre Kertész

In his diary “ Last Einkehr” , Kertész emphasizes that although he “writes in Hungarian”, he does not belong to Hungarian literature, but “to that Jewish literature that appeared in Eastern Europe, which was mainly in German during the monarchy and then in the successor states was never written in the language of the respective national environment and was never part of the national literature ”. In doing so, he continued the line drawn by Franz Kafka and Paul Celan . Ultimately, the language chosen in each case with which “the extermination of European Jews is told” is “accidental”: “and whatever language it is, it can never be the mother tongue.” Accordingly, Kertész makes it clear in Dossier K. that he I orientated myself generally to the "world literature" (and not to the domestic literature business). At the beginning of his work he recognized that he “needed time, time, and an infinite amount of time”, because he first “had to read all of world literature”. Likewise, in an interview in 1996 he stated that he had "never been to this literary business", but always "worked very quietly at home": "I read great literature, Dostoyevsky , Flaubert [...]."

At the very beginning of Kertész's preoccupation with literature there seems to have been a Valéry reading. In Dossier K. he indicates that he had already read Valéry's volume of essays Variété (Vol. 1, 1924) in a Hungarian translation from 1931 around 1953 . From the texts contained therein, he mentions Valéry's Leonardo essay and The Crisis of the Spirit , and he also quotes from La Fontaine's essay on "Adonis" , which is also printed there. One can assume that he has already taken over essential elements of Valéry's poetics and from The Crisis of the Spirit Valéry's cultural criticism from the Adonis essay . Furthermore, Valéry's Leonardo essay speaks of the idea of ​​a “spiritual existence”, which (among other things) could have been exemplary for Kertész's motif of the “spiritual form of existence” in Kaddish for an unborn child .

Kertész mentions Thomas Mann (since 1954) and Camus (since 1957) as other authors who had a significant influence on his early development as an artist . He also mentions reading Kafka (since the mid-1960s), but at that time he was already too old to be influenced by it. A reference to Beckett , whom he counted as one of the “greatest artists after the Holocaust”, is also consistently verifiable in Kertész's writings .

Other important authors who have dealt existentially with the European cultural break and were received by Kertész for this reason are Tadeusz Borowski , Paul Celan , Emil Cioran and Jean Améry . Thomas Bernhard , whom Kertész himself referred to as the “ spiritus rector of the English flag as well as of Kaddisch ” and who was obviously an important reference for the novel Liquidation , can also be counted here . Among the exiled authors , Kertész also explicitly refers to Hans Sahl , Sándor Márai and Czesław Miłosz .

The world literature read by Kertész also includes the great works of philosophy. He explicitly referred to the tradition of Kant - Schopenhauer - Nietzsche . He also drew crucial suggestions from existentialist philosophers such as Kierkegaard , Sartre and Jaspers . In the diary, however, he criticizes Sartre for his moralistic "" commitment [s] "" and accuses him of "counter-conformism". The on the life philosophy oriented Sartre's critics Ortega y Gasset , similar Jaspers has dealt with the phenomenon of mass society and totalitarianism, he rezipierte turn positive. From him he adopted the idea of ​​a cultural evolution on the basis of a cultural memory, through which spiritual process the human form of life is distinguished from all other forms of life. In 1983 he noted in his diary: “Ortega's anthropology. Man is "by no means a thing" but "drama", that is, an event. The "task" of the individual. With Ortega, however: the task cannot be chosen because the choice is inevitable. At the same time the doubtfulness of individuality: the tiger is always the first tiger, he says; but man is never Adam, never the first man, for we are born into a structure over which the past rules. "

Last but not least, the Bible can be recognized as a central reference in Kertész's work. On the one hand, Kertész uses motifs from the Old Testament ("Cain and Abel" in the story Earthlings and Pilgrims , "Lot's Escape from Sodom" in the novel Last Retention ). On the other hand, he makes numerous allusions to the figure of Jesus described in the New Testament , who can be considered a model of a spiritual person. In 1997 Kertész wrote about the Christian culture in Hungary in his diary: “[...] if we carry on the Christian culture, if we want to save the Christian culture, I should say: if the Christian culture can still be saved , then the culture is the negative one Ethics that the Holocaust created are still part of Christian culture, just as Revelation is part of the Bible. But this country, in whose language I live, has never lived in the Christian culture. Although it rattles about "Christian values", it did not understand how to make Christian culture at home here. It remained a pagan country. ”In a note from 1998, Kertész also criticized Pope John Paul II for having“ made the comment (under the flimsy pretext of apology) […] that the Shoah (Auschwitz; the final solution ) be not the act of Christianity ”:“ Accordingly, there is nothing for which Christians should repent. […] In doing so they have robbed themselves of the most living source for the possibility of renewal. ”In the same place, however, he praises the Hungarian poet János Pilinszky :“ A Catholic poet, Pilinszky, knew that; but since he wrote in Hungarian - in a lost and unknown language - he has not yet been declared a heretic. ”As early as 1985, following Pilinszky, he noted that Auschwitz was not a“ trauma ”because of that“ because six million people were murdered, but because six million people are murdered could . " Accordingly, Pilinszky explains in the lecture The History of My Engagement (International Conference on the Creative Imagination, Poigny-La-Foret, October 9-13, 1970): “Everything that happened here is scandal because it could and is invariably holy, because it happened . ”Auschwitz thus not only affects the specific victims and perpetrators, but also the entire later society, which is burdened with the knowledge of the possibility of such an occurrence. Seen in this way, Kertész tried to continue the Christian tradition by adding this knowledge in the context of his work. In this sense he explained in his diary as early as 1973: “I am a medium of the Auschwitz spirit, Auschwitz speaks through me. […] Auschwitz and everything that has to do with it (but what has nothing to do with it?) Is the greatest trauma that people in Europe have suffered since the cross, even if it may take decades or centuries for them to realize it be aware."

The representability of Auschwitz

Even if Kertész was a surviving witness of Auschwitz and his first novel Sorstalanság ( Fatelessness ) is about his deportation to Auschwitz and Buchenwald, despite all authenticity he never seriously tried to give a realistic representation of his experiences there. Rather, behind his description of the "labor camp" is his intellectual work (following Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Valéry, Thomas Mann, Camus etc.), with which he freed himself from the naturalistic constraints of mass society. Ultimately, he was not interested in objective historical events, but in his individual spiritual development. This also explains the cryptic irony and the cold, inhuman language with which the narrator Köves describes his experiences in the camp. Because Kertész apparently wanted to demeanor the story demonstratively in relation to his personal development, with which he openly opposed - albeit ironically coded - the expectations of a so-called "camp literature". In his later diaries he remembers the "idea" that it while working on Schicksalslosigkeit have slides, as follows: "an ironic, disguised as private autobiography novel of the ad nauseum known bearing literature, yes, the literature resists. ”His famous first work is“ actually nothing more than a literary parody ”. In the same vein he remarked in an interview: “The novel is a trick, not a life. One renounces empathy for what one has experienced and describes something else. ”He justifies this renunciation with the fact that ordinary readers could not connect a pure experience report from the concentration camp with their“ real, present-day life ”, such as Even he could no longer imagine the camp himself: "I can no longer imagine what it was like when I stuffed potato peelings into myself, or what it was like that I wasn't allowed to go to the toilet while working." On the other hand, it was possible to write in an understandable way about the universal mechanisms of totalitarianism which would have led to Auschwitz and which still exist today: “I think one can explain Auschwitz because Auschwitz comes from our daily life. Auschwitz has not ended to this day because it is our way of life that leads to Auschwitz. "Of course, depictions of this kind would be difficult to" accept "by the public, because:" If there is even a trace of truth in a book, you have to yourself Feel responsible. ”Accordingly, at the end of the fatelessness of the Buchenwald concentration camp, the protagonist Köves found out on his return to Budapest that he encountered an insurmountable defense against the insights he had gained in the camp from those who stayed at home. According to Kertész, however, the subject “Auschwitz”, which has been generalized in a general sense, is of particular relevance for today's art: “Since our time lacks valid myths, it also lacks style. The Christian myths […] have become meaningless, and so is the ancient myths even more so. [...] But now a new, real myth has slowly emerged in our time of unculture: Auschwitz. This is a myth that [...] can say something to people today if they are ready to open themselves to the language of this myth. [...] The »myth of Auschwitz« is particularly important for the artist. It may sound paradoxical and ruthless when I reflect on art in connection with Auschwitz. And yet it is the case that the lack of style in art, which is often lamented today - I only mention the keyword " postmodernism " - immediately disappears when the artists rely on something: on a myth, a religion and so on. The artist only creates a style by referring to a fixed point. That is why I confess as a novelist: Auschwitz is a grace for me. "

German translations

Narrative

  • Man without fate. (Orig .: Sorstalanság. Szépirodalmi, 1975), translated by Jörg Buschmann. Rütten and Loening, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-352-00341-6 . Newly translated under the title novel of a fateful person by Christina Viragh. Rowohlt Berlin, Berlin 1996, ISBN 978-3-87134-229-5 .
  • Protocol. (Orig .: Jegyzőkönyv. Magazin 2000 , June 1991, No. 6), translated by Jörg Buschmann, in: Literature in the Technical Age 1991. pp. 125–141, attached supplement in: Language in the Technical Age , No. 120 (December 1991). Newly translated by Kristin Schwamm, in: Imre Kertész / Péter Esterházy : A story. Two stories. Residenz Verlag, Salzburg and Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-7017-0881-9 ; in: Imre Kertész, The English flag. Stories. Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-498-03518-5 .; with drawings by Kurt Löb, in: Imre Kertész, Protokoll. Verlag Thomas Reche , Passau 2004, ISBN 3-929566-43-5 ; in: Imre Kertész / Péter Esterházy / Ingo Schulze : One, two, one more story / s. Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8270-0787-2 .
  • Kaddish for an unborn child. (Orig .: Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért. Magvető, 1990), translated by György Buda and Kristin Schwamm. Rowohlt Berlin, Berlin 1992, ISBN 978-3-87134-053-6 .
  • Galley diary. (Orig .: Gályanapló. Holnap, 1992), translated by Kristin Schwamm. Rowohlt Berlin, Berlin 1993, ISBN 978-3-87134-077-2 .
  • A rejection. Book and CD for the Brandenburg Literature Prize 1995, contains a pre-published section from the novel Fiasko , the laudation Silence, Writing, Life, Silence by Adolf Endler as well as a CD reading by Kertész from the novel Eine Schicksallosen (Potsdam, April 1996) and a conversation with Kertész (Hendrik Röder, Budapest, July 1996). Brandenburgisches Literaturbüro, Vacat, Potsdam 1996, ISBN 3-930752-07-7 .
  • I - another. (Orig .: Valaki más. Magvető, 1997), translated by Ilma Rakusa . Rowohlt Berlin, Berlin 1998, ISBN 978-3-87134-334-6 .
  • The English flag. Stories. Contains: The English flag. (Orig .: Az angol lobogó. Holmi , March 1991, No. 3), translated by Kristin Schwamm; The tracker. (Orig .: A nyomkereső. Szépirodalmi, 1977; revised version in: Magazin 2000 , July – August 1993, No. 7–8), translated by György Buda; Protocol. (Orig .: Jegyzőkönyv. Magazin 2000 , June 1991, No. 6), translated by Kristin Schwamm. Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-498-03518-5 .
  • Fiasco. (Orig .: A kudarc. Szépirodalmi, 1988), translated by György Buda and Agnes Relle. Rowohlt, Berlin 1999, ISBN 978-3-87134-212-7 .
  • The tracker. Short story (Orig .: A nyomkereső. Szépirodalmi, 1977; revised version in: Magazin 2000 , July – August 1993, no. 7–8), translated by György Buda. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-22357-7 .
  • Step by step. Screenplay for the »novel of a fateless«. (Orig .: Sorstalanság. Filmforgatókönyv. Magvető, 2001), translated by Erich Berger. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-12292-4 .
  • Liquidation. (Orig .: Felszámolás. Magvető, 2003), translated by Laszlo Kornitzer and Ingrid Krüger. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-518-41493-3 .
  • Detective story. (Orig .: Detektívtörténet. , Published together with A nyomkereső. Szépirodalmi, 1977), translated by Angelika and Péter Máté. Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-498-03525-8 .
  • Dossier K. An investigation. (Orig .: K. dosszié. Magvető, 2006), translated by Kristin Schwamm. Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-498-03530-4 .
  • Victim and executioner. Anthology, contains: Earthlings and pilgrims. (Orig .: Világpolgár és zarándok. In: Élet és Irodalom 38/1976), translated by Ilma Rakusa (first published in: DU , June 2005); I the hangman. (Orig .: Én, a hóhér. Manuscript, adopted in fiasco ), with a preliminary remark by Imre Kertész, translated by Agnes Relle; Die Bank (Orig .: A pad. In: Élet és Irodalom 11/1978), translated by Ilma Rakusa (first published in: DU , June 2005); Budapest. A superfluous commitment. (Orig .: Budapest - Egy fölösleges vallomás. ) First publication in the German translation by Christian Polzin in: Die Zeit , March 5, 1998; Why Berlin? (Orig .: Miért Berlin? ) First publication in the German translation by Kristin Schwamm in: DU , June 2005. Transit, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-88747-220-7 .
  • The last stop - Doctor Sonderberg. Pre-print of the introduction of a text in progress, translated by Ilma Rakusa. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , November 7, 2009 ( online at nzz.ch ); Orig .: A végső kocsma. In: Múlt és jövő. No. 3, 2009 ( PDF, online at multesjovo.hu ).
  • Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. With a fragment of prose. German first publication. Translated by Kristin Schwamm and Adan Kovacsics (prose fragment). Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-03562-4 .
  • Last stop. A diary novel. (Orig .: A végső kocsma. Magvető, 2014), translated by Kristin Schwamm, Adan Kovacsics and Ilma Rakusa. Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-499-26910-3 .
  • The viewer. Records 1991-2001. (Orig .: A néző. Feljegyzések 1991–2001. Magvető, 2016), translated by Heike Flemming and Lacy Kornitzer. Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-498-03561-7 .

Essays and speeches

  • A thought length of silence as the firing squad reloads. Essays. (Orig .: A gondolatnyi csend, amíg a kivégzőosztag újratölt. Monológok és dialógok , Budapest, 1998) Translated by György Buda et al. Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-499-22571-9 .
  • "Eureka!" Speech for the Nobel Prize 2002. Translated by Kristin Schwamm. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-06702-8 .
  • The exiled language. Essays and speeches. Foreword by Péter Nádas , translated by Kristin Schwamm, György Buda and others Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-518-41449-6 ; expanded to include the speech pictures at an exhibition 2004, ISBN 3-518-45655-5 .
  • Eureka! Conversations and a speech. With etchings by Susanne Thuemer. In addition to the Nobel Prize lecture “Heureka!” On December 7, 2002, it contains: Ethics are created by the victims , conversation with Peter Michalzik , Frankfurter Rundschau No. 153, July 4, 1996; I want to hurt my readers , conversation with Martin Doerry and Volker Hage , Der Spiegel No. 18, April 29, 1996; It's about Europe's values , conversation with Volker Hage and Reinhard Mohr , Der Spiegel No. 20, May 17, 1999; Die Glückskatastrophe , conversation with Iris Radisch , Die Zeit No. 43, October 17, 2002; The Representative and the Martyr , conversation with Andreas Breitenstein , Neue Zürcher Zeitung No. 285, December 7, 2002; I show a way out , conversation with Klaus Nüchtern , Falter No. 48, November 26, 2003; One writes as a happy person , conversation with Ijoma Mangold , Süddeutsche Zeitung No. 260, November 9, 2004. Publishing house Thomas Reche, Neumarkt 2006, ISBN 3-85165-654-7 .

Letters

  • Letters to Eva Haldimann. Translated by Kristin Schwamm. Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-498-03545-7 .

Posthumous publications

  • Write your own mythology. Diary entries for the "Novel of a Fateless" 1959–1962. From the archive of the Akademie der Künste Berlin, compiled and translated from Hungarian by Pál Kelemen and Ingrid Krüger, in: Sinn und Form , 1/2019, pp. 5–23.

Film adaptations

  • Csacsifogat ( donkey cart ), TV version of the comedy of the same name by Kertész (performances since 1959), director: József Petrik, 63 min., Production: Magyar Televizió / M3, 1984 ( documentation on IMDb ).
  • Sorstalanság (dt. Fateless - Fateless ), adaptation of the novel Schicksalslosigkeit (1975), screenplay: Imre Kertész, directed by Lajos Koltai Music: Ennio Morricone , 134 min, Hungary / Germany / UK, 2005 (. Documentation on IMDb ) .
  • Emelet ( floor ), film adaptation of the story detective story (1977), screenplay: Annamária Radnai and János Vecsernyés, director: János Vecsernyés, 94 min., Hungary, 2006 ( documentation on IMDb ).

Interviews

  • Radio interview on the occasion of the first German translation of Sorstalanság , Mensch ohne Schicksal (Rütten and Loening, Berlin 1990): Conversation with the Hungarian writer Imre Kertész about his autobiography »Fatelessness«. Moderation: Peter Liebers, recording: Funkhaus Nalepastraße, broadcast: Dialog - Ein Kulturmagazin , January 28, 1989, Radio DDR II, 5:30 pm (DRA Babelsberg, archive number 2006425).
  • David Dambitsch: In the shadow of the Shoah - conversations with survivors and their descendants. Philo, Berlin / Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-8257-0246-4 ;
    • as an audio book: Voices of the Saved - Reports from Survivors of the Shoah. Audio Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89813-213-7 .
  • "I want to hurt my readers". The Hungarian Imre Kertész on his "novel of a fateless". Interview on the new translation of the novel by Christina Viragh. Der Spiegel , April 29, 1996 (No. 18).
  • The ethics are created by the victims. Conversation with Peter Michalzik. Frankfurter Rundschau , July 4, 1996 (No. 153).
  • For me, Auschwitz is a grace. Conversation with Adelbert Reif . In: Universitas , Volume 51, No. 606, 12/1996 (December), pp. 1220–1227.
  • Conversation with Imre Kertész. Carola Hähnel and Philippe Mesnard. In: Sinn und Form , 3/2000, pp. 369–378.
  • The representative and the martyr. Conversation with Andreas Breitenstein, Neue Zürcher Zeitung No. 285, December 7, 2002 ( online at nzz.ch ).
  • Conversation with Horace Engdahl (in German), Stockholm, December 12, 2002 ( video recording on nobelprize.org ).
  • Better to deny yourself everything than be a puppet. About the fragility of all of our certainties. Interview by Marko Martin . In: MUT , January 2003 (No. 425), pp. 52-56.
  • The secret of the dictatorship. Stephan Speicher interviews Imre Kertész. Berliner Zeitung , November 6, 2004.
  • You write as a happy person. Conversation between Imre Kertész and Ijoma Mangold. Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 9, 2004.
  • A novel and its fate. Michael Töteberg in conversation with Imre Kertész. In: Imre Kertész, a fateless novel. Special edition for the German theatrical release of the film Fateless - novel of a fateful ( Sorstalanság ) Rowohlt, Reinbek, June 2005, 292–303, ISBN 3-499-24043-2 .
  • Imre Kertész on his new book "Dossier K." and the new European anti-Semitism. Interview by Eszter Rádai. Élet és Irodalom , July 28, 2006; German translation: Gabriella Gönczy, Perlentaucher , August 16, 2006 ( online at perlentaucher.de ).
  • Shame and love in times of dictatorship. Interview by Franziska Augstein on the occasion of the publication of Dossier K. An investigation . Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 16, 2006 ( online at süddeutsche.de ).
  • My life is a fiction. The Hungarian Nobel Prize Laureate Imre Kertész on his interview book »Dossier K.«. Conversation between Imre Kertész and Jörg Plath. Der Tagesspiegel , October 10, 2006 ( online at tagesspiegel.de ).
  • I keep rolling up the rock. Interview by Sönke Petersen, January 31, 2007, full text of the interview at the German Bundestag in the archive Blickpunkt Bundestag (01/2007), Parliament .
  • In Hungary, anti-Semites are in charge. Tilman Krause interviews Imre Kertész. Die Welt , November 5, 2009.
  • The last witness. Interview by Sacha Batthyany and Mikael Krogerus. Das Magazin , November 7, 2009 (No. 45); also ud T. A life after death. In: Der Standard , November 15, 2009 (No. 14) ( online at derstandard.at ).
  • Hungary discusses Imre Kertész's WELT interview. Tilman Krause interviews Imre Kertész. Die Welt , November 10, 2009.
  • Imre Kertész and Thomas Cooper: A Conversation with Imre Kertész (2010). In: Imre Kertész, The Holocaust as Culture. Seagull, London / New York / Calcutta, 2011, 27–56, ISBN 978-0857420220 .
  • Thinking is an art that transcends people. Conversation with Alexandre Lacroix, interpreter: Emese Varga, from the French by Till Bardoux. Philosophy Magazine , No. 5, 2013 ( online at philomag.de ).
  • I was a holocaust clown. Imre Kertész in conversation with Iris Radisch . Die Zeit , September 12, 2013.
  • I can't compete with Spielberg. Interview by Sieglinde Geisel. NZZ on Sunday , October 20, 2013 ( online at sieglindegeisel.ch ).
  • Auschwitz can repeat itself. Interview by Gregor Mayer, Mittelbayerische Zeitung , January 23, 2015 ( online at Mittelbayerische.de ).

Awards and honors

Imre Kertész in Szeged, Hungary 2007

International prices

Kertész was awarded the Brandenburg Literature Prize in 1995 , the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding in 1997 , the Jeanette Schocken Prize of the City of Bremerhaven, the Friedrich Gundolf Prize of the German Academy for Language and Poetry, and in 2000 the Herder Prize , the WELT Literature Prize and the Pour le mérite for Science and the Arts . In 2001 he received the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize and the Robert Bosch Foundation Prize. In 2002 Imre Kertész was the first and so far only Hungarian-speaking author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his entire literary work. Also in 2002 he was awarded the Hans Sahl Prize and in 2004 the Weimar Goethe Medal and the Great Federal Cross of Merit with a star . Since 2003 Kertész was a member of the Academy of Arts , Berlin, Literature Section. In 2006 he received the Ernst Reuter plaque in Berlin and the Wingate Literary Prize . Since 2005 he has been an honorary doctor of the Free University of Berlin . On November 8, 2006 in Berlin was Nikolai Church honoring the Hungarian Nobel with the award for services to the German and European Understanding 2006 the German Society (1990) instead. The German Society honored an author whose life's literary work is exemplary for dealing with European history of the 20th century. "International understanding through enlightenment, that is what we owe to Imre Kertész." ( Jutta Limbach , President of the Goethe Institute and laudator of the award winner). In 2007 Imre Kertész received the Marion Samuel Prize of the Augsburg Foundation for Remembrance, in 2008 the Prize for Understanding and Tolerance of the Jewish Museum Berlin and in 2009 the Jean Améry Prize . In October 2010 the Friedrich Schiller University Jena opened the Imre Kertész College. Europe's east in the 20th century. Set up historical experiences in comparison . In 2013, Kertész received the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book of the Year 2012 for his complete journalistic work .

Honors in Hungary

literature

  • Johanna Adorján : Current men, this time: Imre. In: Süddeeutsche Zeitung , March 31, 2018 ( online at sueddeutsche.de ).
  • Dietmar Ebert (Ed.): The happiness of atonal narration. Studies on Imre Kertész. Edition AZUR, Dresden 2010, ISBN 978-3-942375-01-6 .
  • Ingo Fessmann: Imre Kertész and the love of the Germans. A personal view of life and work. Hentrich and Hentrich, Berlin / Leipzig 2019, ISBN 978-3-95565-308-8 .
  • László F. Földényi , Akos Doma : Fatelessness: An Imre-Kertész Dictionary. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2009, ISBN 978-3-498-02122-1 .
  • Miklós Györffy, Pál Kelemen: Kertész and his people. Readings on the work of Imre Kertész ( Budapest Studies in Literary Studies, Vol. 13). Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-57477-5 .
  • Eva Haldimann: Snapshots from thirty years of Hungarian literature. Corvina Verlag, Budapest 1997, ISBN 963-13-4202-6 .
  • Irene Heidelberger-Leonard: Imre Kertész. Life and work. Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8353-1642-3 .
  • Daniel Kehlmann : Fatelessness. Talk to Imre Kertész. In: Sinn und Form , 1/2010, pp. 135–138.
  • Barbara Mahlmann-Bauer: Imre Kertész - an obituary. The Auschwitz returnees were lucky to write; his work is a treasure for those who survived him. In: Literaturkritik.de , 4 / April 2016.
  • Norbert Otto: Parzival in Auschwitz - Imre Kertesz 'masterful work "Novel of a Fateless One". In: The Three. 10/2001, p. 26ff.
  • Jan Philipp Reemtsma : Survival as forced consent. Thoughts while reading Imre Kertész's “Novel of a Fateless Man”. Lecture, 1999. In: Jan Philipp Reemtsma: Why Hagen killed Jung-Ortlieb. Untimely about war and death. (= Beck series 1508). CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49427-7 , pp. 220-249.
  • Clara Royer: Imre Kertész: "L'histoire de mes morts": Essai biographique. Actes Sud, Arles 2017, ISBN 978-2-330-07261-2 .
  • Bernhard Sarin: A life as articulation. The anthropological iconography of the writings of Imre Kertész. Universitätsverlag Potsdam, 2010, ISBN 978-3-86956-086-1 . ( PDF; 3.7 MB ). Trapped in fictions. The Lot novel by Imre Kertész. BoD - Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2018, updated edition 2019, ISBN 978-3-7494-7933-7 ; updated and added a reservation in 2020 under the title Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and Reality in the Work of Imre Kertész , (illustrated edition) ISBN 978-3-7504-9474-9 .
  • Zsuzsa Selyem: The novel in which “the ninth symphony was withdrawn”. About the function of withdrawal in the novels "Liquidation" by Imre Kertész and "Doktor Faustus" by Thomas Mann. In: Weimar Contributions . Journal for literary studies, aesthetics and cultural studies. 1/2006, pp. 63-81.
  • György Spiró: In Art Only the Radical Exists. Portrait of Kertész on the occasion of the Nobel Prize, in: The Hungarian Quarterly. Vol. 43, No. 168 (Winter 2002), pp. 29-37 ( online at restlessbooks.org ).
  • Mihály Szegedy-Maszak, Tamás Scheibner (eds.): The long, dark shadow: studies on the work of Imre Kertész. Passagen, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-85165-654-7 .
  • Adam Zagajewski : About loyalty. Imre Kertész's patient work on the myth of the novel. In: Sinn und Form , 6/2009, pp. 751–756.

Web links

Commons : Imre Kertész  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical data based on the biography on the website of the Budapest Kertész Institute ( www.kerteszintezet.hu/eletrajz ) and Imre Kertész: Galley diary . About the author. P. 319; Imre Kertész: Dossier K. Life data. P. 236f, unless otherwise stated.
  2. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from June 1990, pp. 282f.
  3. ↑ Imre Kertész: Dossier K. P. 9f.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Benz , Barbara Distel (ed.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 3: Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald. CH Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-52963-1 : “The prisoners in the camp were [...] mainly Hungarian Jews who were transported via Auschwitz to Buchenwald and from there to the 'Wille' subcamp for forced labor. Imre Kertész was one of them. ”, P. 593.
  5. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. Entry from April 11, 2004: "59 years ago today I was liberated in Buchenwald.", P. 281.
  6. ↑ Interview with Imre Kertész about his new book "Dossier K." and the new European anti-Semitism. by Eszter Rádai, 2006.
  7. ↑ On the musicals and plays see the self-statements of Kertész in: One writes as a happy person. Conversation with Ijoma Mangold. Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 9, 2004; Thinking is an art that transcends people. Conversation with Alexandre Lacroix. Philosophy Magazine , No. 5, 2013 ( online at philomag.de ).
  8. ↑ Kertész in conversation A novel and his fate with Michael Töteberg (2005), in: Imre Kertész, novel of a fateless. Special edition for the German theatrical release of the film Fateless , p. 293.
  9. ↑ Kertész in an interview »I want to hurt my readers«. Der Spiegel , April 29, 1996 (No. 18).
  10. ↑ Kertész in conversation I show a way out with Klaus Nüchtern, Falter , November 26, 2003 (No. 48); Kertész in conversation A Conversation with Imre Kertész with Thomas Cooper (2010), in: Imre Kertész, The Holocaust as Culture. P. 36f.
  11. ↑ Kertész in conversation A novel and its fate with Michael Töteberg (2005): “I was only able to do translations after my book was published in 1975. Before that, the people in the literature business didn't know my name, and that was right. Because I didn't want to make a career in a literary business that was quite disgusting. ”(Quoted from: Imre Kertész, Roman eines Schicksallosen. Special edition for the German theatrical release of the film Fateless , p. 297).
  12. ↑ See the bibliography on the website of the Budapest Imre Kertész Institute, Section 3. Műfordítások / Translations ( online at kerteszintezet.hu ).
  13. ↑ Ilma Rakusa : The right to individuality. NZZ, October 12, 2009; Imre Kertész: Letters to Eva Haldimann. Haldimann's reviews are printed in Eva Haldimann: Snapshots from Thirty Years of Hungarian Literature.
  14. ↑ Imre Kertész: Foreword to the volume of essays A thought length of silence while the firing squad reloads. P. 9; also in the preliminary remark by the author of the extended essay volume Die exilierte Sprache. P. 13.
  15. ↑ Clara Royer: Imre Kertész. P. 266.
  16. ↑ Internet magazine Gondola , November 15, 2002: A Csacsifogat tovább gördül… ( online at gondola.hu ).
  17. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. P. 158.
  18. ↑ Imre Kertész: Speech to celebrate German reunification. NZZ , October 4, 2003 ( NZZ Online ).
  19. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. P. 448 (note on March 2, 2004: "my Magdeburg speech ...").
  20. ↑ Information page of the German Bundestag about Kertész. January 29, 2007, accessed February 24, 2011.
  21. ↑ Ingo Fessmann: Imre Kertész and the love of the Germans. A personal view of life and work. Hentrich and Hentrich, Berlin / Leipzig 2019.
  22. ↑ Press release of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, October 31, 2012.
  23. ↑ Der Spiegel , No. 46/2012, The Paths of Fate. P. 148 ( online at spiegel.de ).
  24. ↑ Kertész in conversation I was a Holocaust clown with Iris Radisch. Die Zeit , September 12, 2013 ( online at zeit.de ).
  25. ↑ Imre Kertész: A myth comes to an end. There is open anti-Semitism in the Hungarian Writers' Union. Its causes go back a long way. Translated by Peter Máté. In: The time. April 1, 2004, p. 59 ( online at zeit.de ).
  26. ↑ Tilman Krause interviews Imre Kertész: In Hungary, anti-Semites are in charge. In: Die Welt , November 5, 2009. ( online at welt.de ); Hungary discusses Imre Kertész's WELT interview. In: Die Welt , November 10, 2009. ( online at welt.de ).
  27. ↑ Meghamisították Kertész szavait / The words of Kertész have been falsified. Duna TV , November 9, 2009, 7:03 pm ( online at archive.org. Original: http://www.dunatv.hu/kultura/keretesz_szuletesnapi_interju.html ).
  28. ^ Controversial honor for author Imre Kertész. In: Der Standard , August 20, 2014 ( online at derstandard.at ).
  29. ^ State order for Hungarian writers. Imre Kertész defends adoption. In: taz , August 20, 2014 ( online at taz.de ).
  30. ↑ Johanna Adorján: Men currently, this time: Imre. In: Süddeeutsche Zeitung , March 31, 2018 ( online at sueddeutsche.de ).
  31. ^ Hungary: Imre Kertesz's estate goes to a government-affiliated foundation. In: Der Standard , December 22, 2016 ( online at derstandard.at ); Iván Sándor: Kertész's life's work expropriated? In: Frankfurter Rundschau , March 14, 2017 ( online at fr.de ).
  32. ↑ Gregor Dotzauer: estate of Imre Kertész. In: Der Tagesspiegel , March 1, 2018 ( online at tagesspiegel.de ).
  33. ↑ Imre Kertész. The rights to the archive remain in Budapest. Report in: Der Tagesspiegel , February 2, 2019 ( online at tagesspiegel.de )
  34. ↑ Imre Kertész: Dossier K. P. 217.
  35. ↑ On the publication of Sorstalanság see the Kertész portrait by György Spiró: In Art Only the Radical Exists. In: The Hungarian Quarterly Vol. 43, No. 168 (Winter 2002), pp. 29–37, as well as the various statements made by Kertész in the interviews: »I want to hurt my readers«. Der Spiegel , April 29, 1996 (No. 18); A novel and its fate. Michael Töteberg in conversation with Imre Kertész. (2005); Imre Kertész and Thomas Cooper: A Conversation with Imre Kertész. (2010).
  36. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from August 1973, p. 32.
  37. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from June 1984, p. 185.
  38. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from the end of 1963, p. 9. Thomas Mann first used the expression “work on oneself” quoted by Kertész when considering something non-political (1918): “Art” appears to him to be “its highest, most moral, strictest and most cheerful form”. . Cf. Bernhard Sarin: A life as articulation. The anthropological iconography of the writings of Imre Kertész. P. 65 (note 147).
  39. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from June 1965, p. 18.
  40. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from May 1965, p. 16f.
  41. ^ Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. Pp. 22 / 193f (note 132).
  42. ^ Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. Pp. 22/192 (note 130).
  43. ↑ Imre Kertész: A nyomkereső. Két kisregény. ( The tracker. Two novellas. ) Contents: A nyomkereső ( The tracker ) and Detektívtörténet ( detective story ), Szépirodalmi, Budapest, 1977.
  44. ↑ Imre Kertész: The viewer. Records 1991-2001. Entry from 1994, pp. 75f.
  45. ↑ Imre Kertész: Fiasco. P. 434f.
  46. ↑ Imre Kertész: Kaddish for an unborn child. P. 50.
  47. ↑ Kertész explains in an interview As a happy person with Ijoma Mangold, one writes : “That is the last perspective, the last look I can throw at Auschwitz. 'Liquidation' tells of the second generation who inherited Auschwitz and who cannot do anything with it. ”( Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 9, 2004)
  48. ^ Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. Cape. Liquidation , pp. 137f.
  49. ↑ Kertész explains in the diary: "The figure of Keser" is a figure invented by the narrator, B. the story and all the characters involved are fiction, the only real B., the narrator, has thought up and invented the story ”. Regarding the distribution of the narrative role to different characters, he remarks: “When the omniscient narrator no longer exists. And we have yet to deal with omniscience, because we are moving in the third person ... Maybe it's me but succeeded if not the , then at least one to find solutions ". ( Last retreat. Diaries 2001–2009. Entries from April 22 and May 2, 2001, p. 35, p. 42)
  50. ↑ In an interview with Zoltan Andras Bán, Kertész indirectly draws attention to the central word “love” (see ibid., P. 136f) in liquidation . There he explains that “a word is born at the end of the piece, and that the whole piece is basically about how that word came about. Although apparently there is an act and people ”. ( Beszélő , October 10, 1992, German in Imre Kertész: letters to Eva Haldimann. Appendix , p. 128) From Kertész's diary notes from 2001 and 2003 it can be concluded that he began working on liquidation in 1990 . (Imre Kertész: Last Einkehr. Diaries 2001-2009. Entries from April 22, 2001 and March 2, 2003, p. 34, p. 172) Accordingly, there is a note in his diaries from February 1990 in which he refers to the "Subculture" of "solidarity" or "love" and identified the "anger of power" against "individual nonconformity" as a characteristic of totalitarianism. (Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from February 1990, p. 269)
  51. ^ Bernhard Sarin: A life as articulation. The anthropological iconography of the writings of Imre Kertész. Cape. on Liquidation , pp. 135-145; Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. Cape. Liquidation , pp. 135f.
  52. ^ Imre Kertész: Liquidation. P. 9.
  53. ↑ Imre Kertész: Will Europe be resurrected? In: The Exiled Language. Pp. 165-180.
  54. ↑ Világpolgár és zarándok ( Earthlings and Pilgrims ), in Élet és Irodalom 38/1976.
  55. ↑ Imre Kertész: Earthlings and Pilgrims , in Du , June 2005, translated by Ilma Rakusa; also in Imre Kertész: victims and executioners .
  56. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. Entry from October 1, 2004, p. 310.
  57. ↑ Imre Kertész: Fiasco. Pp. 363–378 ( I, the executioner ... ); also published separately in Imre Kertész: Sacrifice and Executioner .
  58. ↑ Preliminary remark to I, the executioner. in Imre Kertész: victims and executioners. P. 23.
  59. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001-2009. Entry from August 9, 2001, p. 69.
  60. ↑ The tracker. In: Imre Kertész: The English flag .
  61. ↑ NZZ , 3./4. December 1977; also in Eva Haldimann: Snapshots from thirty years of Hungarian literature. P. 84.
  62. ↑ Imre Kertész: The Tracer. In: The English flag. P. 90.
  63. ↑ Kertész explains in an interview with the last witness of Sacha Batthyany and Mikael Krogerus: “The total communist dictatorship came in 1948/1949. Even then the joke was circulating:» Do you know what distinguishes today's situation from the Nazis? «-» Now everyone is wearing a yellow star, not just the Jews. «” ( Das Magazin , November 7, 2009, No. 45).
  64. ^ Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. Pp. 72/253 (note 470).
  65. ^ Imre Kertész: A pad ( The Bank ), in Élet és Irodalom 11/1978 .
  66. ^ Imre Kertész: Die Bank , in Du , June 2005, translated by Ilma Rakusa; also in Imre Kertész: victims and executioners .
  67. ↑ The Bank , in Imre Kertész: Victims and Executioners. P. 57.
  68. ↑ Clara Royer: Imre Kertész. P. 63; see also Imre Kertész: Dossier K. p. 138.
  69. ^ Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. P. 73f. Kertész refers to his 1954 reading of Zauberberg in the travelogue Budapest, Vienna, Budapest (1990), see: The language in exile. P. 33.
  70. ^ Budapest, Vienna, Budapest. In: Imre Kertész: The language exiled .
  71. ↑ Imre Kertész: Protokoll , Übers .: Jörg Buschmann, in: Literatur im Technische Zeitalter 1991. pp. 125–141, attached supplement in Language in the Technical Age No. 120 (December 1991).
  72. ↑ Minutes , trans .: Kristin Schwamm, in: Imre Kertész / Péter Esterházy: A story. Two stories ; Imre Kertész: The English flag .
  73. ↑ Péter Esterházy: Èlet és irodalom , 1993 (German life and literature. 1994, in: Kertész / Esterházy, One story. Two stories ).
  74. ↑ Imre Kertész: Dossier K. P. 223f.
  75. ^ Bernhard Sarin: A life as articulation. The anthropological iconography of the writings of Imre Kertész. P. 109.
  76. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from 1883, p. 160.
  77. ↑ Imre Kertész: I - someone else. P.56.
  78. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. P. 77.
  79. ↑ Imre Kertész: I - someone else. P. 65.
  80. ↑ Imre Kertész: I - someone else. P. 113.
  81. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche: “Plato really gave the model of a new art form for posterity, the model of the novel”. ( The birth of tragedy from the spirit of music . Chap. 14).
  82. ^ Imre Kertész: Dossier K. Preliminary remark. P. 5.
  83. ↑ An interview with Kertész My life is a fiction with Jörg Plath. Der Tagesspiegel , October 10, 2006 ( online at tagesspiegel.de ).
  84. ↑ See Pál Kelemen: The Vorlass of Imre Kertész. In: Miklós Györffy, Pál Kelemen: Kertész and his own. Readings on the work of Imre Kertész. Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 14.
  85. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. P. 25.
  86. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. P. 9.
  87. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. P. 378 f.
  88. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. A diary novel. P. 5 (dedication), analogous to p. 290; according to a note dated November 8, 2006, last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. P. 391.
  89. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. A diary novel. P. 317; according to a note dated June 28, 2003, last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. P. 179 f.
  90. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001-2009. Entry from August 9, 2001, p. 69.
  91. ↑ Imre Kertész in: Conversation with the Hungarian writer Imre Kertész about his autobiography »Fatelessness«. Moderation: Peter Liebers, Radio DDR II, January 28, 1989; quoted from Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. P. 9/162 (note 3).
  92. ↑ Kertész in conversation I was a Holocaust clown with Iris Radisch. Die Zeit , September 12, 2013 ( online at zeit.de ).
  93. ↑ Imre Kertész: The Hapless Century. In: Ders .: The exiled language. P. 117.
  94. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from 1983, p. 166.
  95. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from 1988, p. 239.
  96. ↑ Imre Kertész: The exiled language (speech in the context of the Berlin Lessons , November 2000). In: Ders .: The exiled language. Pp. 206, 209.
  97. ^ Imre Kertész: The superfluous intellectual (lecture at the spring conference of the Evangelical Academy Tutzing, 1993). In: Ders .: The exiled language. P. 91f.
  98. ↑ Imre Kertész: The language exiled (speech). In: Ders .: The exiled language. P. 211f.
  99. ↑ Theodor W. Adorno: Zene, Filozófia, társadalom. Esszék (Music, Philosophy, Society. Essays). Translated by: Dezső Tandori, Henrik Horváth and László Barlay. Gondolat, Budapest 1970.
  100. ↑ See Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. P. 18 / p. 179f (note 90 and 91).
  101. ↑ Imre Kertész: Fiasco. Pp. 436f, 442.
  102. ↑ Imre Kertész: Kaddish for an unborn child. P. 50.
  103. ↑ Imre Kertész: Kaddish for an unborn child. P. 38.
  104. ↑ Imre Kertész: Kaddish for an unborn child. P. 42.
  105. ^ Paul Valéry: The poet's right to language. (1928, letter to Léon Clédat of November 19, 1927) In Ders .: Works. Vol. 1: Poetry and prose. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1992, p. 484.
  106. ↑ Imre Kertész: Dossier K. P. 96.
  107. ↑ Imre Kertész: Dossier K. P. 12.
  108. ↑ Kertész in an interview Shame and love in times of the dictatorship by Franziska Augstein. Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 16, 2006 ( online at süddeutsche.de ).
  109. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from 1979, p. 92f.
  110. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. Entry from June 4, 2001, p. 52.
  111. ↑ Imre Kertész: Dossier K. S. 152, 170.
  112. ↑ Kertész in conversation with Hendrik Röder (Budapest, July 1996), audio document on CD, supplement by: Imre Kertész: Eine Rückweisung. Book and CD for the Brandenburg Literature Prize 1995.
  113. ↑ Paul Valéry, Változatok ( vaudeville , Vol. 1, Paris, 1924). Translator: Geza Strem. Revai Kiadas, [Budapest 1931].
  114. ↑ Imre Kertész: Dossier K. P. 170f. See Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. P. 16f / p. 177 (note 71).
  115. ↑ Paul Valéry: Introduction to the method of Leonardo da Vinci. In Ders .: works. Vol. 6: On the aesthetics and philosophy of the arts. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1995, p. 11.
  116. ↑ An interview with Kertész In Hungary anti-Semites have the say by Tilman Krause. In: Die Welt , November 5, 2009. ( online at welt.de ).
  117. ↑ An interview with Kertész Thinking is an art that transcends people with Alexandre Lacroix. Philosophy Magazine , No. 5, 2013 ( online at philomag.de ).
  118. ↑ Kertész in an interview The last witness from Sacha Batthyany and Mikael Krogerus. Das Magazin , November 7, 2009 (No. 45).
  119. ↑ Kertész in an interview I can't compete with Spielberg von Sieglinde Geisel. In: NZZ on Sunday , October 20, 2013 ( online at sieglindegeisel.ch ).
  120. ↑ See the various references to Beckett in Bernhard Sarin: A life as articulation. The anthropological iconography of the writings of Imre Kertész and Lot on the terrace of Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész.
  121. ↑ See Imre Kertész: Die exilierte Sprache (lecture), in: Ders .: Die exilierte Sprache. P. 206ff.
  122. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. May 1, 2004, p. 286.
  123. ↑ See the review on Liquidation by Jan Süselbeck: Staying alive. In Jungle World 2004/03, January 14, 2004 ( online at www.jungle.world ).
  124. ↑ In an interview, Kertész explains Better to refuse everything than to be a puppet by Marko Martin: "In Sahl, the ideological and lifelong exile, I have actually discovered a brother in the spirit." ( MUT , January 2003, p. 53).
  125. ↑ Imre Kertész: Here I confess that it is a vocation to be a citizen. Essay on Sándor Márai. In: Die Welt , September 2, 2000; also under the title Confession to a Citizen in Imre Kertész: The Exiled Language. Pp. 193-205.
  126. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. Entries on Miłosz from July 16, 2001, August 9, 2001 and December 31, 2005, pp. 57, 68, 357.
  127. ↑ Kertész talks about the philosophers he has received. Thinking is an art that transcends people with Alexandre Lacroix. Philosophy Magazine , No. 5, 2013 ( online at philomag.de ). See also the various references in Bernhard Sarin: A life as articulation. The anthropological iconography of the writings of Imre Kertész and Lot on the terrace of Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész.
  128. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entries from 1974 and 1991, pp. 39, 302.
  129. ↑ On Ortega's criticism of Sartre see Ortega y Gasset: An Interpretation of World History (Lecture 1948/49). Gotthold Müller Verlag, Munich 1964, p. 254.
  130. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from 1983, p. 165. Kertész refers to Ortega y Gasset: History as a system. (1941). In: Collected Works. Vol. 4. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1978, pp. 340-387.
  131. ↑ See the documents in Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. Pp. 89-91.
  132. ↑ Imre Kertész: The viewer. Records 1991-2001. Entry from 1997, p. 164f.
  133. ↑ Imre Kertész: The viewer. Records 1991-2001. Entry from 1998, p. 175.
  134. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from June 1984, p. 185.
  135. ↑ János Pilinszky: Big City Icons. Selected poems and essays. Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg 1971, ISBN 3-7013-0458-0 , p. 76.
  136. ^ Imre Kertész: Galley diary. Entry from 1973, p. 32f.
  137. ↑ See Kertész 'statements in conversation with Andreas Breitenstein: The representative and the martyr. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , December 7, 2002 ( online at nzz.ch ); also his statements quoted by Clara Royer in her Kertész biography: Imre Kertész. Cape. Créer la langue d'Auschwitz , p. 153. See Bernhard Sarin: Lot on the terrace of the Kempinski. Fiction and reality in the work of Imre Kertész. P. 156 / p. 286f (note 793).
  138. ↑ Imre Kertész: Last stop. Diaries 2001–2009. Entries from January 25, 2003 and June 11, 2008, pp. 167, 423.
  139. ↑ Kertész in an interview Shame and love in times of the dictatorship by Franziska Augstein. Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 16, 2006 ( online at süddeutsche.de ).
  140. ↑ Kertész in an interview The last witness from Sacha Batthyany and Mikael Krogerus. Das Magazin , November 7, 2009 (No. 45).
  141. ↑ Kertész in an interview Shame and love in times of the dictatorship by Franziska Augstein. Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 16, 2006 ( online at süddeutsche.de ).
  142. ↑ Kertész in conversation Ethics is created by the victims with Peter Michalzik. Frankfurter Rundschau , July 4, 1996 (No. 153).
  143. ↑ Kertész in conversation with Carola Hähnel and Philippe Mesnard. In: Sinn und Form , 3/2000, p. 378.
  144. ↑ A conversation with Kertész For me, Auschwitz is a mercy with Adelbert Reif. In: Universitas , 12/1996, pp. 1221f.
  145. ↑ Information from the University of Jena on the Imre Kertész College . The college, headed by Włodzimierz Borodziej and Joachim von Puttkamer , was founded in October 2010 as the ninth Käte Hamburger college of the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research).
  146. ↑ Online at archive.org (Original: http://literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=21924) .
personal data
SURNAME Kertész, Imre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian writer and Nobel Prize winner
DATE OF BIRTH November 9, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH March 31, 2016
Place of death Budapest