Imre Kertesz, Nobel literature laureate

The Nobel Prize for Literature 2002 goes to Imre Kertesz of Hungary "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history."

Born Nov. 9, 1929, in Budapest, Kertesz, a Hungarian Jew, was arrested and deported by the Nazis. He spent his teenage years in Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

His first novel, "Fateless" (1975), reflects that experience but did not gain him any recognition. It tells the story of a young boy, Koves, who is arrested and sent to a concentration camp but manages to survive by conforming. The novel is both moving and provocative in that Koves adapts to his world and finds it normal. He does not view it with the hindsight of the reader who is privy to the horrors of that time and place.

After the war, Kertesz worked as a journalist until the communist regime put an end to his career. He then turned to fiction and translated the works of German authors who influenced his thinking, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler and Sigmund Freud.

His recognition came after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He has received many prestigious literary prizes, both in Hungary and in Germany.

His novels are a profound reflection on destiny and the absence of destiny, on freedom and the necessity to survive. His work, as noted by the Nobel Academy, examines the possibility of life and individual thought at a time when mankind is almost completely subjected to political power.

He is also the author of the novels "Kaddish for a Child Not Born" and "Fiasco," and a collection of essays, "Galley Diary". His work has been translated into numerous languages, including English. The prize is awarded to writers for the body of their published work.

Like previous Nobel Prize winners, Kertesz will receive 10 million Swedish crowns. The official ceremonies will take place on the Dec. 10 in San Remo, Italy. The date commemorates the death of Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, who instituted the prizes bearing his name before his death in 1896. His will states that the prize should go to someone who "shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction."

Last year's prize went to V.S. Naipaul, the British author from Trinidad and Tobago. Americans who have received the Nobel Prize for literature include Toni Morrison, Joseph Brodsky, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.