Author becomes second Hungarian to win prestigious award, following Imre Kertész, as Swedish Academy praises apocalyptic vision that ‘reaffirms the power of art’
László Krasznahorkai, the Hungarian author renowned for his complex philosophical novels and labyrinthine sentences, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy recognised him “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”
The announcement, made on Thursday at a ceremony in Stockholm, marks a triumph for the 71-year-old writer whose demanding, postmodern works have long been tipped for the honour. The prize is worth 11 million Swedish kronor, approximately £967,000.
Krasznahorkai becomes the second Hungarian author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, following the late Imre Kertész, who won in 2002. Kertész, a Holocaust survivor, was honoured “for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history” and passed away in 2016.
The Swedish Academy described Krasznahorkai as “a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess.” However, they noted his work also displays contemplative and finely calibrated tones, particularly in his writings influenced by East Asia.
Born on January 5, 1954, in Gyula, a small town in southeast Hungary near the Romanian border, Krasznahorkai grew up in a middle-class family during the Communist era. His father, György Krasznahorkai, was a lawyer who kept his Jewish roots secret, only revealing them when his son was 11 years old.
Krasznahorkai’s debut novel, Satantango, published in 1985, achieved immediate success and thrust him into the forefront of Hungarian literary life. The postmodern work portrays a destitute group of residents on an abandoned collective farm in the Hungarian countryside just before the fall of Communism, exploring themes of despair, decay and the end of the world.
The novel was adapted into a seven-hour film by Hungarian director Béla Tarr in 1994, cementing Krasznahorkai’s reputation as a master of apocalyptic vision. Several of his other works, including The Melancholy of Resistance (1989), have also been transformed into acclaimed films by Tarr.
Satantango received the Best Translated Book Award in English in 2013, more than two decades after its original publication. The translation, by George Szirtes, introduced Krasznahorkai’s distinctive style to a wider English-speaking audience.
The author’s work has earned extraordinary praise from literary giants. Susan Sontag described him as “the contemporary Hungarian master of apocalypse who inspires comparison with Gogol and Melville.” The late W.G. Sebald remarked that “the universality of Krasznahorkai’s vision rivals that of Gogol’s Dead Souls and far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing.”
In 2015, Krasznahorkai became the first Hungarian author to win the Man Booker International Prize. The Booker judges praised his “extraordinary sentences, sentences of incredible length that go to incredible lengths, their tone switching from solemn to madcap to quizzical to desolate as they go.”
The Washington Post noted that Krasznahorkai’s “philosophical, bleakly funny novels often unfold in single sentences,” a stylistic choice that demands considerable commitment from readers but rewards them with profound insights into human existence and the nature of reality.
Literary critic James Wood once wrote that Krasznahorkai’s books “get passed around like rare currency,” acknowledging that whilst only a handful of his works have been translated into English, those that have become treasured amongst discerning readers.
The Nobel Committee highlighted that Krasznahorkai’s work “is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess” whilst examining reality “to the point of madness.” His novels grapple with themes of apocalyptic terror, yet ultimately reaffirm the transformative and redemptive power of art.
Beyond Satantango, Krasznahorkai’s notable works include The Melancholy of Resistance (1989), which received the German Bestenliste-Prize for the best literary work of 1993. The novel explores themes of mob violence and fascism through the story of a small Hungarian town disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious circus.
His novel War & War (1999) follows a Hungarian archivist who becomes obsessed with a manuscript he discovers, whilst Seiobo There Below (2008) presents a series of interconnected stories exploring beauty and art across different cultures and time periods. The latter won the Best Translated Book Award in 2014, making Krasznahorkai the first author to win the prestigious prize twice.
More recent works include Spadework for a Palace: Entering the Madness of Others (2018), described by the Nobel Committee as “an extremely entertaining and rather madcap tale” set in a Manhattan haunted by the ghost of Herman Melville. The novel explores themes of imitation, resistance and artistic obsession.
Throughout his career, Krasznahorkai has travelled extensively, drawing inspiration from his experiences in Mongolia, China and other parts of East Asia. He spent a year in West Berlin in 1987 as a recipient of a DAAD fellowship, his first time travelling outside Communist Hungary.
The author drew upon his Asian experiences in writing The Prisoner of Urga and Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens, works that showcase his ability to adopt a more contemplative tone compared to his earlier Central European apocalyptic visions.
After residing in Berlin for several years, where he served for six months as S. Fischer Guest Professor at the Free University of Berlin, Krasznahorkai currently lives “as a recluse in the hills of Szentlászló” in Hungary. He is married to Dóra Kopcsányi, a sinologist and graphic designer, and has three children: Kata, Ágnes and Panni.
In addition to his novels, Krasznahorkai has written screenplays, essays and short stories. His collaboration with Béla Tarr produced four major films: Satantango (1994), Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), The Man from London (2007) and The Turin Horse (2011). These films are regarded as masterpieces of slow cinema, perfectly complementing Krasznahorkai’s literary vision.
The author has received numerous literary prizes throughout his career, including Hungary’s highest state honour, the Kossuth Prize. He has also been awarded the Vilenica Prize, the Spycher-Prize for his complete work, and the America Award for lifetime contribution to international writing.
Krasznahorkai was among the favourites to win this year’s Nobel Prize, sharing top odds in betting markets with Chinese writer Can Xue. Australian novelist Gerald Murnane and Mexican author Cristina Rivera Garza were also prominently featured amongst frontrunners.
The Nobel Prize in Literature, established according to Alfred Nobel’s will, is judged by the Swedish Academy, comprising 18 distinguished Swedish writers, linguists, literary scholars and historians. Nominations are invited annually from academics and literary organisations worldwide, with a longlist of 15 to 20 writers narrowed down to a shortlist of five.
Last year’s winner was South Korean author Han Kang, best known for her novel The Vegetarian, which won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize for fiction in 2016. Kang was only the 18th woman amongst the 120 literature laureates since the prize began in 1901.
The official award ceremony will take place on December 10 in Stockholm, where Krasznahorkai will deliver his Nobel Lecture and receive the prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. The date marks the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.
Krasznahorkai’s win represents recognition not only of his individual achievement but also of the Central European literary tradition he represents. His work continues a lineage that includes Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Thomas Bernhard and other writers who used absurdism and philosophical depth to examine the human condition.
The author has previously stated that he grew up “in a predicament and a country where a person accursed with a heightened aesthetic sensitivity was forced to drown in a complete absence of meaning.” This experience of living under Communist rule in Hungary profoundly shaped his literary vision.
Born two years before the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which was brutally repressed by the Soviet Union, Krasznahorkai witnessed firsthand the collapse of meaning and the triumph of absurdity in totalitarian systems. These experiences infuse his fiction with its distinctive blend of apocalyptic despair and dark humour.
Despite his international acclaim, Krasznahorkai has maintained a relatively low public profile, choosing to focus on his writing rather than literary celebrity. He has described himself as someone who examines reality with relentless intensity, refusing to look away from the darkest aspects of human existence.
The Nobel Committee’s decision to honour Krasznahorkai reflects the Swedish Academy’s ongoing commitment to recognising writers who challenge readers whilst offering profound insights into contemporary existence. His win continues the tradition of awarding the prize to authors whose work demands engagement but repays it with transformative artistic experiences.
For Hungary, Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize represents a moment of national pride, coming 23 years after Kertész’s historic win. Both authors share a commitment to unflinching examination of difficult truths, though their subjects and styles differ markedly.
Whilst Kertész focused primarily on the Holocaust and its aftermath, exploring themes of survival and witness testimony, Krasznahorkai’s apocalyptic visions encompass a broader range of historical and philosophical concerns. Yet both writers share a refusal to offer easy consolations or conventional narrative satisfactions.
The prize money of 11 million Swedish kronor, currently worth approximately £967,000, represents not only financial recognition but also the imprimatur of the world’s most prestigious literary award. Previous winners include Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus, Gabriel García Márquez, Toni Morrison and Bob Dylan.
As news of his win spread, publishers worldwide prepared to reissue Krasznahorkai’s works and commission new translations. The “Nobel effect” typically results in dramatically increased sales and broader readership for laureates, particularly those not yet widely known outside their home countries.
Literary scholars and critics welcomed the decision, noting that Krasznahorkai’s challenging but rewarding work represents precisely the kind of ambitious literature the Nobel Prize should celebrate. His sentences may be long and his vision dark, but his artistic achievement is undeniable.
In an era dominated by shorter attention spans and easier pleasures, Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize stands as an affirmation that demanding literature still has value and that readers remain willing to engage with difficult, philosophically complex works that refuse to provide simple answers.
As the Swedish Academy’s citation noted, even “in the midst of apocalyptic terror,” Krasznahorkai’s work “reaffirms the power of art.” This recognition that art can survive and even flourish in the darkest circumstances offers hope that literature retains its capacity to illuminate the human condition, however bleak that condition may appear.
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Image Credit:
László Krasznahorkai — photo by Koen Stadtgarten, cropped, licensed under CC BY 4.0
