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The prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2025 has been bestowed upon the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, as revealed by the Nobel awarding body.

The Committee commended the 71-year-old's "compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of end-times fear, reasserts the power of art."

A Legacy of Apocalyptic Writing

Krasznahorkai is celebrated for his dystopian, somber books, which have won many accolades, for instance the 2019 National Book Award for literature in translation and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize.

Several of his works, notably his fictional works Satantango and another major work, have been adapted into movies.

Initial Success

Originating in Gyula, Hungary in 1954, Krasznahorkai first gained recognition with his 1985 first book Satantango, a dark and hypnotic depiction of a collapsing countryside settlement.

The work would eventually earn the Man Booker International Prize recognition in the English language nearly three decades later, in the 2010s.

A Unique Prose Technique

Frequently labeled as postmodern, Krasznahorkai is famous for his long, winding sentences (the twelve chapters of his novel each are a one paragraph), dystopian and somber subjects, and the kind of unwavering intensity that has led critics to draw parallels with Gogol, Melville and Kafka.

Satantango was famously made into a seven-hour movie by filmmaker the director Béla Tarr, with whom Krasznahorkai has had a long working relationship.

"He is a remarkable writer of epic tales in the European heritage that extends through Franz Kafka to the Austrian writer, and is marked by absurdist elements and grotesque exaggeration," commented the Nobel chair, leader of the Nobel committee.

He characterized Krasznahorkai’s prose as having "progressed to … flowing language with long, winding phrases devoid of full stops that has become his trademark."

Literary Praise

The critic Susan Sontag has described the author as "today's Hungarian genius of end-times," while WG Sebald applauded the broad relevance of his outlook.

Just a small number of Krasznahorkai’s novels have been translated into English translation. The literary critic Wood once noted that his books "circulate like valuable artifacts."

International Inspiration

Krasznahorkai’s professional journey has been influenced by travel as much as by his writing. He first left communist Hungary in 1987, spending a year in Berlin for a fellowship, and later was inspired from east Asia – especially China and Mongolia – for works such as a specific work, and his book on China.

While working on this novel, he journeyed extensively across the continent and lived for a time in Ginsberg's New York home, noting the legendary Beat poet's backing as crucial to finalizing the book.

Krasznahorkai on His Work

Inquired how he would explain his writing in an conversation, Krasznahorkai responded: "Characters; then from these characters, words; then from these terms, some brief phrases; then additional phrases that are more extended, and in the chief very long paragraphs, for the duration of 35 years. Elegance in prose. Fun in hell."

On audiences discovering his writing for the initial encounter, he added: "If there are people who are new to my novels, I couldn’t recommend anything to read to them; rather, I’d suggest them to venture outside, sit down at a location, perhaps by the banks of a creek, with nothing to do, nothing to think about, just staying in tranquility like boulders. They will sooner or later meet a person who has previously read my works."

Nobel Prize Context

Ahead of the reveal, oddsmakers had listed the top contenders for this year's prize as Can Xue, an innovative Chinese author, and Krasznahorkai himself.

The Nobel Prize in Writing has been given on 117 past events since 1901. Recent recipients have included Annie Ernaux, the musician, the Tanzanian-born writer, Louise Glück, Peter Handke and the Polish author. The previous year's recipient was Han Kang, the from South Korea writer most famous for The Vegetarian.

Krasznahorkai will officially accept the prize medal and certificate in a event in December in the Swedish capital.

Additional details forthcoming