Imre Kertész received the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2002. The Swedish Academy’s choice came as a surprise to many and in various ways the general public, critics, and scholars were taken unawares. In particular, the English-speaking world knew little to nothing about Kertész’s work at the time, and even now, after his death in 2016, he is far from being a household name.
Kertész was born in on November 9th 1929 in Budapest into a secularized middle-class Hungarian Jewish family. His parents were László (1900-?), whose father Adolf (1863-1928) changed his surname from Klein in 1916, and Aranka Jakab (1902-1991). His parents divorced in 1936. Although in some of his texts there are references to an unhappy childhood, his family background, and early schooling, little has been known until his 2006 volume K. dosszié...
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Citation: Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven. "Imre Kertész". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 January 2008; last revised 15 June 2018. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11921, accessed 09 June 2026.]
