2007-9-13

Imre Kertesz

At Pm 13,October 10, Sweden Local Time (Pm 19, October 10, Beijing Time), Sweden Royal Literature Institution announced that Imre Kertesz, a Hungary Writer was awarded Nobel Literature Prize in 2002 for commenting his profound description of experience that puny individuals fight against barbarian powder. He will get a premium of SEK 10 million (about $1 million).

Kertesz, a Jew, born in Budapest on November 9, 1929, was plunged into Auschwitz Concentration Camp by Nazi in 1944, later transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp and released in 1945. His first novel Sorstalans¨¢g (English version is Fateless) was published in 1975, which took his life in concentration camp as its setting.

Works of Kertesz probed into living and thinking ways of human being. He made an attempt to continue to maintain individual way of living and thinking, which is seldom if ever in such a time that individual will bend to social power. This works reflects one period of unordinary experience in his life: that was a period of unforgettable time that he was in Auschwitz concentration camp, when only teenage of Kertesz was prisoned in concentration camp, which was not an exceptional historical event that far away from normal society for him.

This novel of Kertesz describes Keith, a boy who was arrested with guiltless and was thrown into concentration camp. Though fortune did not favor him, he still struggled and lived. The novel depicted the Keith¡¯s life in concentration camp through a distinguished visual angle. Keith accepted the life in concentration camp as a kind of normal life, as each person out of concentration camp did. The conditions are extremely cruel and tough, yet he still could find happy time. Just like a child knowing nothing about the world, Keith eyed everything there. The overwhelming description by author made readers seem experience by themselves. After finished reading the novel, the readers will not only know the barbarian and cruel activities of Nazi, but also know their unexplainable ignorance and helpless. Kertesz send such a message to readers with his pen: ¡°Existence is just obedience!¡± As long as human society exists, this law exists!

Such idea of Kertesz happened to have the same view with traditional philosophy. Yet his idea is far beyond those of traditional philosophy. He argues that love is the highest ambit of ¡°Obedience¡± of human being. It exists in spiritual kingdom of human being. Only those understood love are truly living. IN Kertesz¡¯s opinion, it will seem insignificant that once experiences of every person are put together with the requirements and interests of human being, therefore, lives of human being ought to be individualized, so and so only, individual will live by themselves.

The later several novels of Kertesz are basically complements and comments of first literary. He reveals a kind of strong criticism style in his literary, which make readers feel that he just like ¡°a red hawthorn or hedge full of thorns¡± that are heavy and thorny. He is inaccessible even for the visitors who are familiar with him. Nevertheless, the works of Kertesz still inflict a kind of convulsion in the hearts of readers. He encourages people to open their minds and let free ideas burgeon and burst out.

Nobel Literature Prize was one the five great prize areas that referred to in the testament of Alfred Bernhard Nobel. He said in the testament that one part of the premium will be awarded to ¡°a writer who has created a best works with ideal inclination in literature world.¡± The awarding unit of literature prize is Sweden Royal Literature Institution. Sweden Royal Literature Institution is consisted of at most 18 lifetime academicians without one female. The first literature prize was awarded to Sully Prudhomme, a French poet in 1901. Historically, many famous writers such as Roman Rolland, Bernard Shaw and Ernest Hemingway etc ever won this prize.