Nobel-book publisher can expect `a good kind of wild'

October 06, 2003|By Julia Keller.

Nothing says "Buy me!" for a product quite like a big, prestigious international award slapped on its side. And they don't come any bigger or more prestigious than the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Last week, J.M. Coetzee, South African-born writer who teaches at the University of Chicago, was named winner of the 2003 prize. Nobel groupies may recall, however, that Chicago area residents had reason to celebrate the 2002 prize as well: The winner was Hungarian scribe Imre Kertesz, whose novels are published in English exclusively by Northwestern University Press.

And if Kertesz's experience is any guide, Coetzee's name soon will set bookstore employees scurrying.

"We've been really pleased" at the post-Nobel sales for Kertesz's work, says Donna Shear, director of the NU Press.

The press publishes "Fateless" (1992) and "Kaddish for a Child Not Born" (1997), the first and third volumes of Kertesz's trilogy about life in a concentration camp, a fictionalization of the author's own experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, to which he was sent as a teenager. The second volume, "Fiasco," has not been translated into English.

Prior to the Nobel Prize, Shear reports, "Fateless" had sold approximately 300 hardback copies (at $68 a pop) and 3,600 paperback copies ($19.95). After the Swedish Academy's announcement, readers snapped up 800 hardback and 40,000 paperback copies.

"It is continuing to sell well," she says, adding that "Fateless" has been adopted by instructors at many universities as required reading for students.

The pre-Nobel "Kaddish" sold some 290 hardbacks (at $24.95 apiece) and 1,800 paperbacks ($14.95). The post-Nobel tally: approximately 1,900 hardbacks and 16,000 paperbacks.

"There wasn't name recognition for Kertesz before the Nobel," says Shear.

The hoopla attendant upon having one of their authors nab the world's most famous literary prize -- a blizzard of media calls tied up the office phone lines -- was bracing, she recalls. "It was wild, but it was the good kind of wild. We're ready for the next one."
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