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The prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2025 has been awarded to Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, as revealed by the committee.

The Jury highlighted the seventy-one-year-old's "compelling and visionary collection that, within cataclysmic dread, reasserts the strength of creative expression."

A Renowned Path of Apocalyptic Fiction

Krasznahorkai is celebrated for his dystopian, pensive books, which have won several prizes, including the 2019 National Book Award for international writing and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize.

Many of his books, notably his fictional works his debut and The Melancholy of Resistance, have been turned into feature films.

Early Beginnings

Born in Gyula, Hungary in 1954, Krasznahorkai first gained recognition with his 1985 first book Satantango, a bleak and mesmerising representation of a collapsing village society.

The work would later win the Man Booker International Prize recognition in the English language many years later, in 2013.

A Unique Prose Technique

Frequently labeled as postmodern, Krasznahorkai is known for his long, winding sentences (the twelve chapters of his novel each are a one paragraph), bleak and somber subjects, and the kind of unwavering power that has led critics to compare him to Gogol, Melville and Kafka.

This work was famously transformed into a extended film by cinematic artist the director Béla Tarr, with whom Krasznahorkai has had a long artistic collaboration.

"Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that includes Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is marked by absurdism and grotesque excess," stated the Nobel chair, head of the Nobel jury.

He described Krasznahorkai’s prose as having "progressed to … flowing syntax with lengthy, intricate lines devoid of full stops that has become his trademark."

Critical Acclaim

The critic Susan Sontag has called the author as "the modern Hungarian expert of end-times," while the writer W.G. Sebald praised the wide appeal of his outlook.

Only a few of Krasznahorkai’s books have been rendered in English. The reviewer James Wood once remarked that his books "get passed around like rare currency."

Worldwide Travels

Krasznahorkai’s career has been molded by journeys as much as by his writing. He first exited the communist his homeland in 1987, residing a twelve months in the city for a fellowship, and later drew inspiration from east Asia – notably Mongolia and China – for novels such as a specific work, and Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens.

While working on War and War, he journeyed extensively across Europe and resided temporarily in the legendary poet's New York residence, stating the legendary Beat poet's backing as essential to completing the book.

Writer's Own Words

Asked how he would explain his oeuvre in an interview, Krasznahorkai answered: "Characters; then from these characters, vocabulary; then from these words, some concise lines; then more sentences that are lengthier, and in the main exceptionally extended phrases, for the period of decades. Elegance in prose. Enjoyment in darkness."

On readers encountering his work for the first time, he noted: "If there are individuals who haven’t read my novels, I would not suggest any specific title to explore to them; rather, I’d recommend them to step out, settle in a place, perhaps by the banks of a creek, with no tasks, a clear mind, just remaining in silence like stones. They will in time meet a person who has previously read my books."

Nobel Prize Context

Ahead of the reveal, betting agencies had pegged the favourites for this year’s honor as Can Xue, an experimental Chinese novelist, and the Hungarian.

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been presented on 117 past events since 1901. Latest winners have included Annie Ernaux, Dylan, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Louise Glück, Handke and Tokarczuk. Last year’s recipient was Han Kang, the from South Korea writer most famous for her acclaimed novel.

Krasznahorkai will officially be presented with the award and document in a function in winter in Stockholm, Sweden.

Updates to come