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[email protected] www.multesjovo.hu LITERATURE LITERATURE János Kôbányai KERTÉSZ-DIARY Like every diary, Kertész-Diary (Kertésznapló) is a journey as well. At several levels and in several spaces, in time, in fragments, and above (and below) all, it focuses on the works and personality of Imre Kertész. The author, in a previous book written in an “academic style” and manner has already examined Kertész. In that book he analysed the historical and intellectual background to Imre Kertész’s work as well as perspectives on the delayed Hungarian reception. (Jób IMRE KERTÉSZ LITERATURE NOBEL PRIZE 2002 IMRE KERTÉSZ LITERATURE NOBEL PRIZE 2002 díja. Háttér és recepció.[Job’s Prize. Background and Reception.]) Now János Kôbányai, freed from the shackles of an academic approach, digs deeper and attempts to answer (or rather question) what aesthet- ic and “professional-existential” lessons may be drawn from the be- haviour of the – actually emigré – writer, so distant from the traditi- ons and institutions of Hungarian intellectual life, and the inexorable detachment in an aesthetic sense from the circumstances of the pre- sent as well as the insistence on accuracy (and truth)? “Perhaps it is not talent that turns one into a writer, but a refusal to accept the lan- guage and the terminology” says Imre Kertész. What is the message behind this unparalleled Jób Phenomenon, rereading and reinterpreting Kertész works, in particular Galley Diary, which provides the form and starting point of this book? What content, discovery and exam- IMRE KERTÉSZ ple can Kertész’s literary and human achievements represent for every- one? LITERATURE LITERATURE János Kôbányai JOB’S PRIZE Background and Reception THE DEPTHS OF THE MAN Job’s Prize began as an epilogue to The Depths of the Man – an antholo- Writings on Imre Kertész in the quarterly gy of the writings of Imre Kertész published in the magazine Múlt és Jövô.