Fatelessness

Imre Kertész, who received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the author of the semi-autobiographical book “Fatelessness.” The account of a 14-year-old Hungarian Jew’s experiences in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps is told in this 1975 novel. György “Gyuri” Köves, the main character, is taken from his Budapest home and put on a train to Auschwitz without knowing why he is being sent there.

The story is simple and subtle, concentrating on the immediate and bodily sensations of malnourishment, hunger, and illness. This book is one in a trilogy that includes “Fiasco” and “Kaddish for an Unborn Child” as its sequels. The delicate experience of the individual is upheld in Kertész’s literature against the savage arbitrariness of history.