Melville House Books

The first time Hungarian author Imre Kertesz met Americans, they were soldiers rescuing him from a concentration camp in Nazi Germany.” Now, 60 years later, the 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize for literature drew “cheers and a standing ovation” at his first-ever appearance here, reports Claudia La Rocco in an Associated Press wire story. “Excited New Yorkers recently packed an auditorium at the 92nd Street Y” for the reading, says La Rocco. The 74-year-old Kertesz read in his native tongue, but the event constituted “a triumphant evening,” said audience member and Norton editor Robert Weil, who is currently editing the collected works of Holocaust survivor Primo Levi.

• MORE: Astute readers will note that the AP report says the reading took place “recently.” The event actually took place almost two weeks ago, on 19 October. As an item on The Literary Saloon noted a few days later, “Stunningly, there has been no other media coverage of the event (or the author) so far” — except for one report, and an in-depth one at that, filed the next day by Ron Hogan for Beatrice.com.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.