Hungarian Imre Kertesz wins Nobel Literature Prize

(10 Oct 2002) 1. Mid shot Nobel prize winner for literature Imre Kertesz walking down stairs 2. SOUNDBITE: (German) Imre Kertesz, Nobel prize winner for literature: "The telephone call came from Stockholm, my first reaction was one of happiness." 3. Cutaway Kertesz 4. SOUNDBITE: (German) Imre Kertesz, Nobel prize winner for literature: "I am always happy and I wrote about it (the Holocaust). Happiness is beauty." 5. Cutaway Kertesz with flowers surrounded by journalists 6. SOUNDBITE: (Hungarian) Imre Kertesz, Nobel prize winner for literature: "I am very happy and obviously it means a great deal to me. This is major recognition for me." 7. Cutaway Kertesz 8. SOUNDBITE: (Hungarian) Imre Kertesz, Nobel prize winner for literature: "I had seen in the press that I was one of the nominees for this year's prize, but this story appeared last year as well. I tried to keep calm until the news became reality." 9. Cutaway Kertesz being greeted 10. SOUNDBITE: (German) Imre Kertesz, Nobel prize winner for literature: "I'm writing literature, what can literature achieve, one has a reader, that a reader enjoys my sentences. That's all." 11. Kertesz leaving STORYLINE: NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE ANNOUNCED Imre Kertesz, whose fiction draws on his experience as a teenager in the concentration camp, Auschwitz, won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for exploring how individuals can survive when subjected to "barbaric" social forces. The Swedish Academy singled out the 72-year-old Hungarian's 1975 debut novel, "Sorstalansag" ("Fateless"), in which he writes about a young man who is arrested and taken to a concentration camp but conforms and survives. Kertesz said his first reaction to the news he had won was one of great happiness. Kertesz, a Jew born in Budapest, was deported in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, then to the Buchenwald camp in Germany, where he was liberated in 1945. Some 6 (m) million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Kertesz is the first Hungarian to win the award, this year worth 10 (m) million krone (1 (m) million dollars). The academy said Kertesz's writings explore the possibility of continuing to live and think as an individual in an era in which people were severely repressed by society. Only two of his books, "Fateless" and "Kaddish," have been translated into English and Kertesz is hopeful the award will enable more works to become available. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...