Fateless

Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Near Fine. 1992. First American Edition; Third Printing. Paperback. Near Fine in Wraps: shows very mild wear to the corner tips (the lower has been quite neatly reinforced with clear cellophane tape) ; else flawless; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of creases to the panels. Free of creases to the backstrip. Free of creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of underlining, hi-lighting, marks, or marginalia in the text. Free of any ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, plates, or labels. A handsome, nearly-new copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing a couple of minor, unobtrusive imperfections. Bright and clean. Very close to 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. (7.75 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches) . Translated from the Hungarian by Christopher C. Wilson and Katharina M. Wilson. Language: English. Weight: 8.1 ounces. Trade Paperback. Imre Kertész (1929 - 2016) was a Hungarian author and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature, "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history". He was the first Hungarian to win the Nobel in Literature. His works deal with themes of the Holocaust (he was a survivor of German concentration and death camps) , dictatorship, and personal freedom. His best-known work, Fateless (Sorstalanság) , describes the experience of 15-year-old György Köves in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Zeitzand and his attempts to reconcile himself to those experiences after the war. Upon his return to his native Budapest still clad in his striped prison clothes, the fourteen-year-old senses the indifference, even hostility, of people on the street and he is left to ponder the meaning of his experience alone. The boy's response to his experience is curiously ambivalent. In the camps he had tried to adjust to his ever-worsening situation by imputing human motives to his inhumane captors. By imposing his logic - that of a bright, sensitive, though in many ways ordinary teenager - he maintains a precarious semblance of normalcy. Once freed, he must contend with the "banality of evil" to which he has become accustomed. Without emotional or spiritual ties to his Jewish heritage and rejected by his country. Written between 1969 and 1973, the novel was initially rejected for publication by the Communist regime in Hungary, but was published in 1975. In 2005, a film based on the novel, for which he wrote the script, was made in Hungary. ; Small 8vo 7½" - 8" tall; 191 pages .