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The coveted Nobel Prize in Literature for 2025 has been bestowed upon from Hungary author László Krasznahorkai, as revealed by the Nobel awarding body.

The Committee highlighted the seventy-one-year-old's "gripping and imaginative body of work that, in the midst of cataclysmic dread, reasserts the power of the arts."

An Esteemed Career of Dystopian Fiction

Krasznahorkai is renowned for his bleak, melancholic works, which have won several accolades, such as the 2019 National Book Award for translated literature and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize.

Several of his novels, notably his novels Satantango and another major work, have been turned into movies.

Initial Success

Hailing in Gyula, Hungary in 1954, Krasznahorkai first gained recognition with his 1985 initial work his seminal novel, a grim and hypnotic depiction of a disintegrating rural community.

The book would go on to win the Man Booker International Prize award in English nearly three decades later, in 2013.

An Unconventional Writing Approach

Commonly referred to as avant-garde, Krasznahorkai is renowned for his long, winding sentences (the dozen sections of his novel each comprise a one paragraph), dystopian and melancholic subjects, and the kind of persistent force that has led literary experts to compare him to literary giants like Kafka.

The novel was famously transformed into a extended movie by filmmaker Béla Tarr, with whom Krasznahorkai has had a lengthy working relationship.

"Krasznahorkai is a great writer of epic tales in the Central European heritage that includes Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess," said Anders Olsson, head of the Nobel panel.

He described Krasznahorkai’s prose as having "evolved into … smooth language with long, winding phrases devoid of punctuation that has become his trademark."

Expert Opinions

The critic Susan Sontag has called the author as "the contemporary Hungarian master of end-times," while WG Sebald commended the universality of his outlook.

Only a few of Krasznahorkai’s works have been rendered in English translation. The reviewer James Wood once wrote that his books "get passed around like rare currency."

Global Influences

Krasznahorkai’s career has been influenced by exploration as much as by his writing. He first departed from communist his homeland in 1987, staying a twelve months in the city for a fellowship, and later drew inspiration from east Asia – notably Mongolia and China – for novels such as a specific work, and his book on China.

While writing War and War, he journeyed extensively across European nations and resided temporarily in Ginsberg's New York apartment, noting the legendary poet's assistance as essential to finishing the work.

Krasznahorkai on His Work

Asked how he would explain his oeuvre in an interview, Krasznahorkai responded: "Letters; then from letters, vocabulary; then from these terms, some short sentences; then more sentences that are lengthier, and in the chief very long paragraphs, for the period of decades. Elegance in writing. Fun in darkness."

On readers encountering his writing for the first time, he continued: "For any readers who have not yet read my novels, I would not suggest anything to read to them; rather, I’d suggest them to go out, settle in a place, perhaps by the side of a brook, with nothing to do, nothing to think about, just staying in silence like boulders. They will sooner or later encounter an individual who has previously read my books."

Nobel Prize Context

Prior to the declaration, bookmakers had ranked the favourites for this year's honor as the Chinese writer, an avant garde Chinese writer, and Krasznahorkai.

The Nobel Award in Literature has been awarded on 117 past events since 1901. Current winners include the French author, Dylan, Gurnah, Louise Glück, Peter Handke and Olga Tokarczuk. The most recent winner was Han Kang, the South Korean author best known for The Vegetarian.

Krasznahorkai will formally receive the award and document in a ceremony in winter in the Swedish capital.

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