Hungarian Imre Kertesz, whose novels often focused on his time in a Nazi concentration camp, won the Nobel Prize in literature yesterday for exploring how individuals can survive when subjected to "barbaric" social forces.
Kertesz, 72, who was born in Budapest, was deported to Auschwitz in 1944, then to Buchenwald, where he was liberated in 1945.
"For him Auschwitz is not an exceptional occurrence," the Swe-dish Academy said. "It is the ultimate truth about human degradation in modern experience."
The award is worth 10 million kronor (US$1 million).
The citation singled out his first novel in 1975 Sorstalansag, (Fateless) in which he writes about a young man who is arrested and taken to a concentration camp but conforms and survives.
"The refusal to compromise in Kertesz's stance can be perceived clearly in his style, which is reminiscent of a thickset hawthorn hedge, dense and thorny for unsuspecting visitors," the academy said.
Kertesz said yesterday he was surprised and happy to have won the prize and that it should be help writers from eastern Europe.
"It was a mixture of surprise and joy," Kertesz told reporters at the Ernst Reuter Scientific Institute in Berlin, where he is doing research and writing a new book.
"This should bring something to the countries in eastern Europe," he said.
The 18 lifetime members of the 216-year-old Swedish Academy make the annual selection in deep secrecy at one of their weekly meetings and do not even reveal the date of the announcement until two days beforehand.
Nominees are not revealed publicly for 50 years, leaving the literary world to only guess about who was in the running. However, many of the same critically acclaimed authors are believed to be on the short list every year.
Last year's award went to perennial favorite V.S. Naipaul, a British novelist and essayist born in Trinidad to parents of Indian descent.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner will be named today in Oslo, Norway, the only Nobel not awarded in Sweden.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-Wong tomorrow, which it said would possibly make landfall near central Taiwan. As of 2am yesterday, Fung-Wong was about 1,760km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving west-northwest at 26kph. It is forecast to reach Luzon in the northern Philippines by tomorrow, the CWA said. After entering the South China Sea, Typhoon Fung-Wong is likely to turn northward toward Taiwan, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said, adding that it would likely make landfall near central Taiwan. The CWA expects to issue a land
Taiwan’s exports soared to an all-time high of US$61.8 billion last month, surging 49.7 percent from a year earlier, as the global frenzy for artificial intelligence (AI) applications and new consumer electronics powered shipments of high-tech goods, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. It was the first time exports had exceeded the US$60 billion mark, fueled by the global boom in AI development that has significantly boosted Taiwanese companies across the international supply chain, Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) told a media briefing. “There is a consensus among major AI players that the upcycle is still in its early stage,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it is expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong this afternoon and a land warning tomorrow. As of 1pm, the storm was about 1,070km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, and was moving west-northwest at 28 to 32kph, according to CWA data. The storm had a radius of 250km, with maximum sustained winds of 173kph and gusts reaching 209kph, the CWA added. The storm is forecast to pass near Luzon in the Philippines before entering the South China Sea and potentially turning northward toward Taiwan, the CWA said. CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi yesterday said that China using armed force against Taiwan could constitute a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, allowing the country to mobilize the Japanese armed forces under its security laws. Takaichi made the remarks during a parliamentary session while responding to a question about whether a "Taiwan contingency" involving a Chinese naval blockade would qualify as a "survival-threatening situation" for Japan, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun. "If warships are used and other armed actions are involved, I believe this could constitute a survival-threatening situation," Takaichi was quoted as saying in the report. Under Japan’s security legislation,
RSS