Description
Book Synopsis'While the average reader cannot pretend truly to understand the reality of those who suffered in concentration camps, Kertesz draws us one step closer' Observer
Gyuri, a fourteen-year-old Hungarian Jew, gets the day off school to witness his father signing over the family timber business - his final act before being sent to a labour camp. Two months later, Gyuri finds himself assigned to a 'permanent workplace'. This is the start of his journey to Auschwitz.
On his arrival Gyuri finds that he is unable to identify with other Jews, and is rejected by them. An outsider among his own people, his estrangement makes him a preternaturally acute observer, dogmatically insisting on making sense of the barbarity - and beauty - he witnesses.
Trade ReviewMoving and numbing...a very great novel -
Irish TimesRemarkable...an original and chilling quality -
New York Review of Books[T]his work...ought to stand beside Primo Levi's
If This is a Man - The TimesExtraordinary -
ObserverShould be savoured slowly . . . Only through exploring its subtlety and detail will the reader come to appreciate such an ornate and honest testimony to the human spirit * Washington Times *
