Title: Kaddish for a child not born
First published: 1997
Description: Imre Kertesz's novel is a tale of identity and memory - the story of a middle-aged man taking stock of his life in the everpresent shadow of the Holocaust.

The story unfolds at a retreat as the narrator, a middle-aged survivor of the Holocaust, tries to explain to a friend that he cannot bring a child into a world where the Holocaust has occurred and could occur again. In an intricate narrative, we learn of the narrator's myriad disappointments: his unsuccessful literary career, his failed marriage, his ex-wife's new family and children - children that could have been his own.

Kaddish for a Child Not Born is a deeply introspective, poetic yet unsentimental work in which a man takes stock of his own life choices and those that have been made for him by events beyond his control.
Subjects: Jews, Holocaust survivors, Fiction, Hungary, fiction, Jews, fiction, Fiction, historical, general
Places: Hungary
LC classification: PH3281.K3815 K313 1997