Quotes from book
Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Imre KertészOriginal title Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért (Hungarian, 1990)

Kaddish for an Unborn Child is a novel by Imre Kertész, first published in 1990 .

“How can we do justice even when it concerns truth itself, since for me only one truth exists, my truth, even if it is a delusion, yes, my delusion; my delusion.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“Auschwitz, I told her, appears to me in the image of a father; yes, the two terms, Auschwitz, and father, resonate the same echoes in me, and if the observation is that God is an exalted father, then God, too is revealed to me in the image of Auschwitz.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“I live and occasionally I look up at the glorious air or the clouds into which I keep digging my grave with my pen, diligently, like a forced laborer, whom they order every day to dig deeper with his spade…”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“I have felt that some sort of awful shame is attached to my name and that I have somehow brought this shame along from somewhere I have never been, and that I have carried this sin as my sin even though I have never committed it; this sin pursues me all my life, which life is undoubtedly not my own even thought I live it, I suffer from it die of it.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“If one takes the path of success, then one ends up either successful or unsuccessful, there is no third alternative.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“For me this is a fact, writing is necessity, I don’t know why, but it seems it was the only solution offered to me, even if it doesn’t solve anything; still it doesn't leave me…”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“Man is always a little at fault, that’s all.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“Nothing upsets me as much as a shop window jammed full of objects; such windows literally depress, sadden, even demoralize me.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“Cognitively we don’t know and will never discover what occasions the cause of our existence, we don’t know the purpose of our existence and we don’t know why we have to disappear from here once we have been placed here, I don’t know, why I have to live this fragmentary existence, which happened to be my lot, instead of a life that perhaps does exist somewhere. Why did I get this lot? This sex, this body, this awareness, this geographic setting, this fate, this language, this history, this rented room?”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“"No" — I could never be another person’s father, fate, god,
"No" — it should never happen to another child, what happened to me; my childhood. (Auschwitz).”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“"Auschwitz cannot be explained." And yet, it doesn’t take a Wittgenstein to notice that the sentence is faulty even from the point of pure linguistic logic;”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“Failure alone remains as the one single accomplishable experience;”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“I do what I have to do, although I don’t know why I have to.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“At any rate I found myself writing because I had to write, although I didn’t know why.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“I stayed alive therefore I am.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“I read somewhere; while God still existed one sustained a dialogue with God, and now that He no longer exists one has to sustain a dialogue with other people, I guess, or, better still, with oneself, that is to say, one talks or mumbles to oneself.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“The world is not our imagination but our nightmare, full of inconceivable surprises.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“My body is foreign to me that body that sustains me and will, ultimately, kill me.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“The sentence "Auschwitz cannot be explained" is faulty simply from a formal point of view, for anything that is has an explanation, even if by necessity a merely self-serving faulty, so so explanation.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“On the other hand, what is really irrational and what truly cannot be explained is not evil but, contrarily, the good.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

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