{"product_id":"the-union-jack-isbn-9781933633879","title":"The Union Jack","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"It was...unnecessary for me to fret about who the murderer was: Everybody was.\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA haunting, never-before-translated, autobiographical novella by the 2002 Nobel Prize  winner.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e An unnamed narrator recounts a simple anecdote, his sighting of the Union  Jack—the British Flag—during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, in the few days preceding  the uprising's brutal repression by the Soviet army. In the telling, partly a digressive  meditation on \"the absurd order of chance,\" he recalls his youthful self, and the  epiphanies of his intellectual and spiritual awakening—an awakening to a kind of  radical subjectivity. In his Nobel address Kertesz remembered:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"I, on a lovely spring  day in 1955, suddenly came to the realization that there exists only one reality,  and that is me, my own life, this fragile gift bestowed for an uncertain time, which  had been seized, expropriated by alien forces, and circumscribed, marked up, branded—and  which I had to take back from 'History', this dreadful Moloch, because it was mine  and mine alone...\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Contemporary Art of the Novella\u003c\/b\u003e series is designed to highlight work by major authors from around the world. In most instances, as with Imre Kertész, it showcases work never before published; in others, books are reprised that should never have gone out of print. It is intended that the series feature many well-known authors and some exciting new discoveries. And as with the original series, The Art of the Novella, each book is a beautifully packaged and inexpensive volume meant to celebrate the form and its practitioners.\u003cu\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for Imre \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cu\u003eKertész\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"...An enormous effort to understand and find a language  for what the Holocaust says about the human condition.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—George Szirtes, \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary  Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"...Searching and visionary beyond the usual parameters.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Sven Birkets,  \u003ci\u003eBookforum\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"In explaining something of the weight and importance of Kertesz's subjects  and creative achievements, it is hard to convey simultaneously the deftness and vivacity  of his writing....There is something quintessentially youthful and life-affirming  in this writer's sensibility...\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Ruth Scurr, \u003ci\u003eThe Nation \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Kertész's work is a profound meditation  on the great and enduring themes of love, death and the problem of evil,  although for Kertész, it's not evil that is the problem but good.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—John Banville, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Sea\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eBorn in Budapest in 1929, \u003cb\u003eImre Kertész\u003c\/b\u003e was imprisoned at Auschwitz in 1944, and then  at Bunchenwald concentration camp. After the war and repatriation, the Soviet seizure  of Hungary ended Kertesz's brief career as a journalist. He turned to translation,  specializing in German language works, and later emigrated to Berlin. Kertesz was  awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002 for \"writing that upholds the fragile  experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.\"","brand":"Melville House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303557353701,"sku":"NP9781933633879","price":13.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781933633879.jpg?v=1767741998","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-union-jack-isbn-9781933633879","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}