Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, acclaimed for his dark, apocalyptic, and absurd works, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature. The committee praised his visionary oeuvre for reaffirming the power of art amidst terror.
László Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian novelist dubbed the 'contemporary master of the apocalypse' by Susan Sontag, has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Committee lauded his 'compelling and visionary oeuvre' for its ability to reaffirm the power of art even amidst 'apocalyptic terror,' recognizing his body of work characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess. Born in 1954, Krasznahorkai's novels, often set in bleak Central European villages, explore characters' search for meaning in a godless world, resisting easy moral solutions and aiming to examine reality 'to the point of madness.' His distinctive writing style features extraordinarily long, serpentine sentences, which his translator describes as a 'slow lava-flow of narrative.' A notable example is 'The Melancholy of Resistance,' where a traveling circus and a whale carcass spark chaos and a power grab, serving as an allegory without offering clear lessons. Krasznahorkai has also collaborated with filmmaker Béla Tarr, adapting his debut novel 'Sátántangó' into a critically acclaimed seven-hour film. The prize includes an 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) cash award.
