Hungarian novelist and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature for “his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”
Born on January 5, 1954, in Gyula, Hungary, Krasznahorkai is known for his dense, lyrical prose and philosophical explorations of chaos, decay, and human endurance. Speaking to Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio after the announcement, the author said, “I’m very happy, I’m calm and very nervous altogether.”
Over a remarkable four-decade career, Krasznahorkai has produced a small but powerful body of work that has reshaped modern European literature. He has also received several prestigious honours, including the International Booker Prize, the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and Hungary’s Kossuth Prize.
The Swedish Academy described him as “a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess.”
Below are five of his most acclaimed novels that define his literary genius:
1. Satantango (1985)
Krasznahorkai’s debut novel, Satantango, brought him instant acclaim and established him as a major voice in world literature. Set in a desolate Hungarian village, the novel depicts a community’s slow collapse and collective madness. It was later adapted into a seven-hour black-and-white film in 1994 by director Béla Tarr, now considered a cinematic masterpiece.
2. The Melancholy of Resistance (1989)
Often regarded as his magnum opus, this novel portrays a decaying town disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious circus. Through absurd events and existential despair, it reflects on political chaos and moral collapse.
3. War and War (1999)
In War and War, Krasznahorkai presents the story of a lonely archivist who becomes obsessed with preserving an ancient manuscript that reveals the essence of humanity’s struggle. The book explores timeless themes of obsession, violence, and transcendence.
4. Seiobo There Below (2008)
This collection of interconnected stories travels across time and geography — from Kyoto to Venice — meditating on art, beauty, and divinity.
5. Herscht 07769 (2021)
Set in a small German town, this novel examines social unrest, arson, and moral decay in pre-pandemic Europe. Critics have hailed it as “a great contemporary German novel” for its psychological depth and chilling portrayal of societal disintegration.
Krasznahorkai’s most recent work, Zsömle Odavan, returns to his homeland of Hungary. The novel follows 91-year-old Uncle Józsi Kada, a man with a secret claim to the throne who chooses to vanish from the modern world — a biting satire on power, identity, and memory.
From Satantango to Zsömle Odavan, László Krasznahorkai’s fiction continues to challenge and inspire readers across generations — reaffirming, as the Nobel committee put it, “the enduring power of art in the face of apocalypse.”
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