László Krasznahorkai Wins 2025 Nobel in Literature

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Hungarian novelist and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai. The Swedish Academy awarded him the world's most prestigious literary prize "for his powerful and visionary works that reaffirm the power of art amidst apocalyptic horror."

Krasznahorkai, often called the "modern Hungarian master of apocalypse," was born in 1954 in Gyula, Hungary. He gained recognition with his 1985 debut novel Satantango, a bleak and hypnotic depiction of a declining rural community. This work, considered a masterpiece of postmodern literature, is known for its long, winding sentences and dystopian and melancholic themes. His works are often compared to those of Gogol, Melville, and Kafka.

The chairman of the Nobel Committee, Anders Olsson, described Krasznahorkai as a "great epic writer of the Central European tradition, stretching from Kafka to Thomas Bernhard and characterized by absurdism and grotesque exaggeration."

Krasznahorkai's most famous works include the novels The Melancholy of Resistance (1989), War and War (1999), and Seiobo There Below (2008). He has collaborated closely with the renowned film director Béla Tarr, who has adapted several of his works, including Satantango and Werckmeister Harmonies.

In 2015, Krasznahorkai became the first Hungarian writer to win the International Booker Prize. His works have been translated into more than forty languages.