Laszlo Krasznahorkai

László Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian novelist and screenwriter best known for his complex, visionary fiction set in Central and Eastern Europe. His works often explore decay, apocalypse, and the search for meaning in a world that is collapsing. He achieved international recognition with the novels Satantango (1985) and The Melancholy of Resistance (1989), both of which were later adapted for film by director Béla Tarr.

In 2025, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

László Krasznahorkai was born in 1954 in Gyula, a small town in southeast Hungary near the Romanian border. His father was a lawyer, and his mother was a social security administrator. László studied law at the University of Szeged and later Hungarian literature at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, where his thesis examined Sándor Márai’s exile writings. While still a student, he worked for the Gondolat publishing house.

Krasznahorkai began writing fiction in the early 1980s. His debut novel, Satantango (1985), portrayed life in a dying collective farm after the collapse of communism. It was widely praised in Hungary for its dark atmosphere and philosophical depth. “Everyone in the novel is waiting for a miracle,” Krasznahorkai said later, “and that waiting itself becomes their tragedy.” The book was adapted into a seven-hour film by Béla Tarr in 1994, establishing a long artistic partnership between the two.

His second novel, The Melancholy of Resistance (1989), deepened his reputation abroad. Critics such as Susan Sontag called him “the master of the apocalypse.” The novel’s vision of a provincial town descending into chaos introduced a distinct style of long, hypnotic sentences that became his signature. He received the German Bestenliste Prize in 1993 for the book.

In 1999, László Krasznahorkai published War and War, whose protagonist travels from Budapest to New York to publish an ancient manuscript online. While working on this book, Krasznahorkai spent time in the United States and acknowledged Allen Ginsberg for his support. The novel marked his move towards global themes.

His later works included Seiobo There Below (2008), inspired by years spent in China and Japan. It won the Best Translated Book Award in 2014. Through stories about craft, art, and beauty, it explored the artist’s place in a world of impermanence.

In 2016, he released Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, a return to Hungary’s moral ruins, which won the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2019. In 2021, his novel Herscht 07769, set in Germany, continued his study of violence and faith in modern society.

Krasznahorkai’s prose is marked by long sentences, repetitive structures, and intense rhythms that mimic inner monologue. He once said, “I try to write about the moment when the world almost ends but still continues.”

László Krasznahorkai has been awarded many literary honours, including the Attila József Prize (1987), the Kossuth Prize (2004), and the Man Booker International Prize (2015).