Kaddish for an Unborn Child
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- R$ 37,90
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- R$ 37,90
Publisher Description
The first word in this mesmerizing novel by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is “No.” It is how the novel’s narrator, a middle-aged Hungarian-Jewish writer, answers an acquaintance who asks him if he has a child. It is the answer he gave his wife (now ex-wife) years earlier when she told him that she wanted one. The loss, longing and regret that haunt the years between those two “no”s give rise to one of the most eloquent meditations ever written on the Holocaust.
As Kertesz’s narrator addresses the child he couldn’t bear to bring into the world he ushers readers into the labyrinth of his consciousness, dramatizing the paradoxes attendant on surviving the catastrophe of Auschwitz. Kaddish for the Unborn Child is a work of staggering power, lit by flashes of perverse wit and fueled by the energy of its wholly original voice.
Translated by Tim Wilkinson
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a tortured burst of introspection, the Hungarian-Jewish narrator of Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertesz's brief novel Kaddish for an Unborn Child examines his reasons for choosing not to have a child, addressing his monologue to the son or daughter he never had. His refusal stems from his experiences as a Holocaust survivor and costs him his wife. The intricacies of his philosophical objections are sometimes lost in a tangle of verbiage, but the magnitude of his loss is eloquently expressed. .
