by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief
BUDAPEST/STOCKHOLM (Worthy News) – Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, best known for his dystopian and apocalyptic novel Satantango, has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy confirmed Thursday.
The Academy said it awarded Krasznahorkai “for visionary prose that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”
It marks the first time in more than twenty years that a Hungarian writer has received the world’s most prestigious literary honor.
The last was Imre Kertész, who won in 2002 “for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history.”
Kertész, a survivor of Nazi death camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald, was honored for his novels Fatelessness and Kaddish for an Unborn Child, which confronted the moral and existential aftermath of the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah.
His award symbolized Hungary’s literary confrontation with totalitarianism and historical trauma — a legacy Krasznahorkai now extends through his portrayal of spiritual desolation in post-Soviet Europe.,
WORLD RECOGNITION
Krasznahorkai, 71, achieved international acclaim with Satantango (1985), a bleak yet intricately structured story about destitute villagers in a decaying Hungarian town near the end of the Soviet era.
The novel was later adapted into a seven-hour film by Hungarian director Béla Tarr in 1994, now regarded as one of the greatest arthouse films ever made.
His other notable works include The Melancholy of Resistance and War and War, each exploring themes of chaos, collapse, and the endurance of the human spirit.
Krasznahorkai previously received the 2015 Man Booker International Prize and the 2019 U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature.
In an interview published by the Nobel Foundation, Krasznahorkai said he was “very proud to be in the line of some really great writers and poets.”
The Swedish Academy praised his “labyrinthine narratives” and his unique ability to merge “cosmic despair with deep human empathy,” placing him among Europe’s most distinctive literary voices.
INTERNATIONAL PRAISE
International commentators also hailed the decision, calling him “a master of absurdist excess and apocalyptic vision,” noting that his writing “captures both the collapse and persistence of the human spirit.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has often clashed with intellectuals critical of his government, nevertheless congratulated Krasznahorkai, writing: “László Krasznahorkai, Hungary’s Nobel Prize laureate in literature, brings pride to our nation. Congratulations!”
The Nobel Prize in Literature, worth 11 million Swedish kronor (about $1 million), will be presented in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
For Hungary, the award represents a powerful continuation of a literary legacy that began with Kertész’s Holocaust reflections and now extends through Krasznahorkai’s explorations of post-totalitarian existence.
As the Swedish Academy put it, both authors gave voice to humanity’s search for meaning amid the ruins of history.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. U.S. President Donald Trump has been lobbying hard for the award, recently telling United Nations delegates, “everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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