Kaddish for an Unborn Child

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

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 08/01/2004
ISBN: 9781400078622
Pages: 128
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.22w x 0.34d

Review Citations: PW Notes and Reprints 11/01/2004 pg. 45
Library Journal 01/15/2005 pg. 172
Publishers Weekly 11/01/2004
Library Journal 01/01/2005