Reality examined to the point of madness: The amazing ouvre of Laszlo Krasznahorkai, 2025 Nobel Literature laureate 

That László Krasznahorkai won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature is no longer news. What is surprising is the sheer obscurity of this pessimistic, even if melancholic, Hungarian writer of prodigious talent in the English language speaking world. Unlike Frank Kafka, Milan Kundera, and fellow Hungarian Imre Kertesz who had earlier won the Prize from that region, perhaps only a few have had of the works of Krasznahorkai.

According to the Nobel Committee citation, the  Hungarian author was recognised “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

The second Hungarian to win the prestigious literary award, Krasznahorkai, 71, said: “I’m very happy, I’m calm and very nervous altogether,” when asked of his reaction by Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio after hearing the news.

With five in his kitty and  other literary prizes, including the 2015 Man Booker International Prize, and the 2013 best translated book award in Fiction for his first novel Satantango, a postmodern work about the end of the world, Krasznahorka has established a reputation as one of most significant contemporary writers in the last two decades.

His works draw tremendous inspiration from his experiences under communism and the extensive travels he undertook after first moving abroad in 1987 to West Berlin for a fellowship.

His novels, short stories and essays are best known in Germany, where he lived for long periods, and Hungary, where he is considered by many as the country’s most important living author.

“He is a hypnotic writer,” Krasznahorkai’s English language translator, the poet George Szirtes, told the AFP news agency. “He draws you in until the world he conjures echoes and echoes inside you, until it’s your own vision of order and chaos”.

Critically difficult and demanding, Krasznahorkai once described his own style as “reality examined to the point of madness.” His penchant for long sentences and few paragraph breaks has also seen the writer labelled as “obsessive”.

Krasznahorkai was told he had won by the Swedish Academy over the phone, while he was on a visit to Frankfurt, Germany.

Eastern Europe Train

The Prize will be handed to him at a ceremony in December in Stockholm.

He is the second Hungarian author to pick up the award following the late Imre Kertesz, who won in 2002. He has also joined the list of Eastern and Central European authors, who have won the prize.  They  include many prominent figures, such as  Poland’s 1905 winner Henryk Sienkiewicz, and 2018 winner,

Wisława Szymborska from Poland, who won  the prize in 1996. Joseph Brodsky Russian-American poet who won the prize in 1987, but was born in the Soviet Union.

Born in 1954, Krasznahorkai attained  recognition in 1985 when he published “Satantango,” an influential work, such that the Swedish Academy called his debut novel “a literary sensation.”

He adapted the book for the big screen in 1994. The black-and-white drama, by Hungarian film-maker Bela Tarr, is notable for its seven-hour running time.

“Reality Examined to Madness”

The Melancholy of Resistance (1989)

War and War (1999), Seiobo There Below (2008). The Nobel Prize in Literature committee described Krasznahorkai as “a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess.”

He grew up in a middle-class Jewish family and drew inspiration from his experiences living under communism, and his travels, following his first move abroad in 1986 to what was then West Berlin.

His 2021 book Herscht 07769 has been described as a great contemporary German novel, due to its accuracy in portraying the country’s social unrest just before the pandemic.

It’s a portrayal of a contemporary small town in Thüringen, Germany, troubled by social anarchy, murder and arson.

British publisher, The Serpent’s Tail describes the plot of the novel, saying: “Gentle giant Florian Herscht is an orphan, adopted by a neo-Nazi, who has apprenticed him as a graffiti cleaner.

“The Boss, a Bach fanatic, is enraged that someone is spraying wolf emblems across the monuments to the famed composer in their East German town.”

The Guardian’s Tanjil Rashid described it as “accordingly bleak from start to finish.” His most recent satirical novel is Zsömle Odavan, Returns to Hungary.

The protagonist is 91 year-old Uncle Józsi Kada, who has a secret claim to the throne but has gone to great lengths to disappear from the world.

Unison and Diversity 

The Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded 118 times since it began in 1901 but only 18 women have won, which points to some kind sexist dominance and unison, while there’s diversity in the spread of countries and nationalities of winners  Last year’s prize was won by South Korean author Han Kang.

At the ceremony she was praised “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.