cover image Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Imre Kertesz, Imre Kerta(c)Sz. Vintage Books USA, $12.95 (128pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-7862-2

In a tortured burst of introspection, the Hungarian-Jewish narrator of Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertesz's brief novel Kaddish for an Unborn Child examines his reasons for choosing not to have a child, addressing his monologue to the son or daughter he never had. His refusal stems from his experiences as a Holocaust survivor and costs him his wife. The intricacies of his philosophical objections are sometimes lost in a tangle of verbiage, but the magnitude of his loss is eloquently expressed. .