Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai wins Nobel Prize in literature

Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai, whose philosophical, bleakly funny novels often unfold in single sentences, has won the Nobel Prize in literature for his “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”.

Several works including his debut Satantango were turned into films by Hungarian director Bela Tarr.

The Nobel judges praised his “artistic gaze which is entirely free of illusion, and which sees through the fragility of the social order combined with his unwavering belief in the power of art”, Steve Sem-Sandberg of the Nobel Committee said at the announcement.

“Laszlo Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through (Franz) Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess,” the Nobel judges said.

Other books include The Melancholy Of Resistance, a surreal, disturbing tale set in a small Hungarian town, and Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, the sprawling saga of a gambling-addicted aristocrat.

He has also written several books inspired by his travels to China and Japan, including A Mountain To The North, A Lake To The South, Paths To The West, A River To The East, published in Hungarian in 2003.

Mr Sem-Sandberg said Krasznahorkai had been on the Nobel radar for some time, “and he has been writing and creating one outstanding work after another”.

He called his literary output “almost half a century of pure excellence”.

Krasznahorkai, 71, could not immediately be reached for his reaction.

He did not speak at the announcement.

Krasznahorkai was born in the south-eastern Hungarian city of Gyula, near the border with Romania.

Throughout the 1970s, he studied law at universities in Szeged and Budapest before shifting his focus to literature.

According to the biography section of his website, he has travelled widely throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas, and has lived in many different countries.

Krasznahorkai has been a vocal critic of autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, especially his government’s lack of support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

He said in an interview for the Yale Review this year: “How can a country be neutral when the Russians invade a neighbouring country?”

But in a post on Facebook, Mr Orban was quick to congratulate the writer, saying: “The pride of Hungary, the first Nobel Prize winner from Gyula, Laszlo Krasznahorkai. Congratulations!”

Krasznahorkai has received many awards, including the 2015 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 their wayward way”.

Krasznahorkai also won the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the US in 2019 for Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming.

The American writer and critic Susan Sontag has described Krasznahorkai as the “contemporary master of the Apocalypse”.

He was also friends with American poet and writer Allen Ginsberg and would regularly stay in Ginsberg’s apartment while visiting New York City.

Krasznahorkai is the first winner from Hungary since Imre Kertesz in 2002.

He joins an illustrious list of laureates that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro.

The literature prize has been awarded by the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy 117 times to a total of 121 winners.

Last year’s prize was won by South Korean author Han Kang for her body of work that the committee said “confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.

The literature prize is the fourth to be announced this week, following the 2025 Nobels in medicine, physics and chemistry.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday.

The final Nobel, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, is to be announced on Monday.

Nobel Prize award ceremonies are held on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite who founded the prizes.

Each prize carries an award of 11 million Swedish kronor (£870,000), and the winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma.