Ten years have passed since the fall of Communism. B., a writer of great repute – whose birth and survival in Auschwitz defied all probability – has taken his own life. His friend Kingbitter discovers among his papers a play entitled Liquidation, in which he reads an eerie foretelling of the personal and political crises that he and B.’s other friends now face. Having survived the Holocaust and the years of Communist rule, having experienced the surge of hope that rose up from the rubble of the Wall, they are left with little other than a sense of chaos and an utter loss of identity. Kingbitter's find precipitates a frantic search for the novel that B. may or may not have left behind. That B. was having an affair with Sarah, one of Kingbitter’s companions, while Kingbitter himself was having an affair with B.’s ex-wife Judit, serves only to complicate matters further. An intricately layered story of history and humanity – powerful, disturbing, lyrical, achingly suspenseful and brilliantly told.

凱爾泰斯·伊姆雷(1929— ) 匈牙利猶太作傢，2002年諾貝爾文學奬獲得者。14歲被納粹投入集中營，1945年獲救。1975年，以他在集中營的生活為背景的處女作《無命運的人生》齣版，這也是他最著名的作品。它與長篇自傳體小說《慘敗》和《為一個未齣生的孩子哭禱》通常被稱作凱爾泰斯大屠殺小說的三部麯。另有《英國旗》、《苦役日記》等中篇小說。他的演講和隨筆被收理成《作為一種文化的大屠殺》、《行刑隊再次上膛前的瞬間靜默》以及《被放逐的語言》等集子齣版。

凱爾泰斯的作品盡管內容各不相同，但實際上都從各個不同角度傳達著同一個主題——大屠殺。作者通過描述自己在集中營的親身經曆，探索著這樣一種可能性：在人類屈服於社會強權的時代個人如何繼續生活和思考。