Krasznahorkai wins 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature

The Swedish Academy on Thursday awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature to Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, saying his body of work offers a "compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art." The announcement was made in Stockholm by Mats Malm, the Academy's permanent secretary, who presented the citation as the laureate joined an international roster of authors honored since the prize's inception in 1901.

Krasznahorkai, 71, was born in 1954 in Gyula in southeast Hungary. The Academy highlighted a sustained artistic vision across a career that includes the breakthrough novel Sátántangó, published in 1985, and The Melancholy of Resistance, from 1989. Several of his works have been adapted for the screen by Hungarian director Béla Tarr, most notably the long-form film version of Sátántangó. Krasznahorkai has received numerous awards over the years, including the 2015 Man Booker International Prize.

The Academy described Krasznahorkai's writing as rooted in a Central European tradition that ranges from Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, while also noting its contemplative elements that look eastward. His prose is widely...