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The prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature for 2025 has been bestowed upon from Hungary author László Krasznahorkai, as revealed by the Swedish Academy.

The Jury highlighted the 71-year-old's "gripping and imaginative oeuvre that, within cataclysmic fear, reasserts the force of the arts."

A Renowned Path of Bleak Writing

Krasznahorkai is celebrated for his dystopian, somber works, which have earned several awards, including the 2019 National Book Award for international writing and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize.

Several of his works, among them his fictional works his debut and The Melancholy of Resistance, have been made into feature films.

Early Beginnings

Born in the Hungarian town of Gyula in 1954, Krasznahorkai first rose to prominence with his 1985 initial work Satantango, a grim and captivating representation of a disintegrating village society.

The work would go on to earn the Man Booker International Prize award in the English language many years later, in 2013.

An Unconventional Prose Technique

Commonly referred to as postmodern, Krasznahorkai is renowned for his lengthy, intricate sentences (the twelve chapters of Satantango each are a solitary block of text), apocalyptic and somber subjects, and the kind of unwavering power that has led literary experts to compare him to Gogol, Melville and Kafka.

The novel was notably made into a extended film by cinematic artist Béla Tarr, with whom Krasznahorkai has had a long artistic collaboration.

"He is a remarkable epic writer in the central European tradition that extends through Franz Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque exaggeration," said the Nobel chair, leader of the Nobel committee.

He portrayed Krasznahorkai’s prose as having "progressed to … smooth syntax with long, winding lines lacking periods that has become his trademark."

Critical Acclaim

Sontag has called the author as "the contemporary from Hungary expert of apocalypse," while the writer W.G. Sebald praised the universality of his perspective.

Only a few of Krasznahorkai’s books have been translated into English. The literary critic James Wood once remarked that his books "circulate like precious items."

International Inspiration

Krasznahorkai’s career has been shaped by journeys as much as by language. He first left socialist his homeland in 1987, spending a twelve months in the city for a scholarship, and later was inspired from Eastern Asia – especially China and Mongolia – for novels such as a specific work, and his book on China.

While writing War and War, he travelled widely across European nations and lived for a time in Ginsberg's New York residence, describing the renowned Beat poet's assistance as crucial to finishing the work.

Krasznahorkai on His Work

Inquired how he would explain his work in an interview, Krasznahorkai answered: "Characters; then from these characters, words; then from these terms, some short sentences; then more sentences that are longer, and in the primary exceptionally extended sentences, for the period of decades. Beauty in prose. Fun in despair."

On readers finding his work for the initial encounter, he noted: "Should there be people who haven’t read my novels, I would refrain from advising anything to peruse to them; instead, I’d recommend them to venture outside, sit down somewhere, perhaps by the banks of a creek, with nothing to do, nothing to think about, just remaining in silence like rocks. They will sooner or later encounter someone who has encountered my books."

Literature Prize History

Before the announcement, oddsmakers had ranked the top contenders for this year's honor as an avant-garde author, an avant garde from China novelist, and Krasznahorkai himself.

The Nobel Honor in Literature has been awarded on one hundred seventeen prior instances since 1901. Latest recipients are the French author, Dylan, Gurnah, Glück, Peter Handke and the Polish author. The previous year's honoree was Han Kang, the Korean writer most famous for her acclaimed novel.

Krasznahorkai will ceremonially receive the award and certificate in a ceremony in winter in Stockholm.

Updates to come