Hungarian Novelist László Krasznahorkai Wins 2025 Nobel in Literature

Hungarian novelist 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 in 1954 in the small town of Gyula in southeast Hungary, near the Romanian border, Krasznahorkai has emerged as one of contemporary literature’s most distinctive voices.

The Nobel Committee highlighted the author’s ability to depict worlds in crisis while affirming the resilience of human creativity. Krasznahorkai’s breakthrough novel, Sátántangó (1985; translated as Satantango, 2012), presents the bleak lives of residents on an abandoned collective farm in Hungary just before the fall of communism. The story revolves around the enigmatic figures Irimiás and Petrina, whose sudden reappearance brings both hope and fear to the waiting villagers. The novel’s stark exploration of human expectation, manipulation, and moral ambiguity has been widely acclaimed and was adapted into a celebrated 1994 film directed by Béla Tarr.

His subsequent works, including Az ellenállás melankóliája (1989; The Melancholy of Resistance, 1998), cemented his reputation as a “master of the apocalypse,” a label given by American critic Susan Sontag. Set in a small Hungarian town, the novel features a ghostly circus and a giant whale carcass that unleashes violence, chaos, and political unrest, dramatising the struggle between order and disorder. In Háború és háború (1999; War & War, 2006), Krasznahorkai extends his vision beyond Hungary, following the archivist Korin on a quest from Budapest to New York to share an ancient epic with the world.

Known for his signature prose style—long, flowing sentences often devoid of full stops—Krasznahorkai’s works blend dreamlike imagery with profound examinations of human nature under pressure. His novels, deeply atmospheric and philosophically charged, continue to resonate with readers and critics around the globe.

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