Kertész won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002, "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history".

One day all of the Jews are pulled off of the buses leaving the Jewish quarter, and are sent to Auschwitz on a train without water.

György falls ill and nears death, but remains alive and is eventually sent to a hospital facility in a concentration camp until the war ends.

A movie version, with screenplay by Imre Kertész, was released in 2005, made in Hungary by director Lajos Koltai, with Marcell Nagy in the starring role.

It also features British actor Daniel Craig, who plays a cameo as an American Army Sergeant.