Fateless (engl. subt.)

The short story by Hungarian writer Imre Kertész, originally published, unnoticed, in 1975 during Kadar’s era, was re-discovered by readers in the 1990s. It caused a sensation and the author went on to win the Nobel Prize for literature. It was only a question of time before the plot would find its way into a film. This sensitive and unusual story about the Jewish boy Gyuri, who gradually falls through the cogs of the Nazi extermination machine, is constructed on the contrast between the horror of life in the concentration camp, and the disinterested, seemingly abstract narration of the adolescent teenager who tries to deal with the abnormal conditions by attempting to view them as something quite normal. After his return he realises that his experience is incommunicable and he has to come to terms with it himself — he can’t even find solace in his Jewish roots, which are now severed, nor his fellow-Hungarians, who show more indifference and hostility, than understanding and empathy. What will become of him? Does he have a future?