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The world-renowned Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2025 has been awarded to the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, as declared by the committee.

The Academy praised the seventy-one-year-old's "gripping and imaginative collection that, amidst cataclysmic fear, reasserts the force of art."

A Renowned Path of Apocalyptic Narratives

Krasznahorkai is renowned for his dark, melancholic books, which have won many prizes, including the 2019 National Book Award for literature in translation and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize.

Several of his novels, among them his titles Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance, have been turned into movies.

Initial Success

Originating in the Hungarian town of Gyula in the mid-1950s, Krasznahorkai first made his mark with his 1985 first book Satantango, a dark and captivating representation of a failing village society.

The novel would later earn the Man Booker International Prize honor in translation decades after, in 2013.

A Distinctive Literary Style

Commonly referred to as avant-garde, Krasznahorkai is famous for his lengthy, intricate sentences (the twelve chapters of his novel each consist of a single paragraph), bleak and melancholic subjects, and the kind of persistent power that has led critics to compare him to Kafka, Melville, and Gogol.

The novel was notably made into a extended film by cinematic artist the director Béla Tarr, with whom Krasznahorkai has had a long creative partnership.

"Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the European literary tradition that traces back to Franz Kafka to Bernhard, and is defined by absurdism and grotesque exaggeration," commented the committee chair, head of the Nobel committee.

He portrayed Krasznahorkai’s prose as having "developed towards … continuous syntax with long, winding sentences devoid of periods that has become his trademark."

Literary Praise

Sontag has described the author as "the modern Hungarian master of apocalypse," while WG Sebald applauded the broad relevance of his perspective.

A handful of Krasznahorkai’s books have been published in English. The critic James Wood once wrote that his books "get passed around like valuable artifacts."

Global Influences

Krasznahorkai’s literary path has been molded by exploration as much as by literature. He first departed from socialist Hungary in the late 80s, residing a period in West Berlin for a scholarship, and later was inspired from east Asia – especially Mongolia and China – for works such as one of his titles, and Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens.

While developing this novel, he journeyed extensively across European nations and lived for a time in Allen Ginsberg’s New York home, describing the renowned poet's backing as vital to finishing the book.

Author's Perspective

Inquired how he would characterize his oeuvre in an interview, Krasznahorkai responded: "Letters; then from letters, vocabulary; then from these words, some concise lines; then more sentences that are lengthier, and in the main extremely lengthy paragraphs, for the period of decades. Beauty in language. Fun in despair."

On readers encountering his books for the first time, he noted: "For any individuals who haven’t read my novels, I would not suggest anything to read to them; on the contrary, I’d suggest them to venture outside, rest at a location, possibly by the edge of a stream, with no obligations, nothing to think about, just staying in silence like rocks. They will in time come across a person who has encountered my works."

Award Background

Prior to the declaration, betting agencies had listed the top contenders for this year’s honor as Can Xue, an avant garde from China author, and the Hungarian.

The Nobel Award in Literature has been given on 117 previous occasions since 1901. Current laureates have included Annie Ernaux, the musician, the Tanzanian-born writer, Glück, Handke and Olga Tokarczuk. Last year’s honoree was Han Kang, the Korean writer most famous for The Vegetarian.

Krasznahorkai will formally accept the medal and document in a event in the month of December in the Swedish capital.

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