Imre Kertész’s Nobel Prize-winning Fatelessness, translated into English by Tim Wilkinson, is a story told in the first person singular by a 14-year-old Hungarian Jewish boy, Gyuri Köves, who is taken to Auschwitz, and then to Buchenwald. Gyuri recounts his story in an almost matter-of-fact way, as a process of slow, gradual deprivation. Fatelessness is not only a holocaust novel, but also the analysis of the fate – or rather, as the title suggests, the fatelessness – of the individual in a totalitarian state.
Tim Wilkinson was awarded with the PEN Book-of-the-Month Translator's Prize for his rendering of Kertész's novels into English. Magda Szabó’s (1917) The Door, translated into English by Len Rix, is an autobiographically inspired story of the peculiar relationship between the writer and her sullen and stubborn, but perfectly efficient housekeeper Emerence. After 20 years of silent emotional wrestling, the events take a dramatic turn when Emerence is taken to hospital, and the writer finds herself unable to comply with her only wish. The ten-thousand-pound prize – divided between the author and the translator – will be awarded in April.
The Independent's review on The Door
The Guardian's review on The Door
The Complete Review's review on Fatelessness | 
