Sensational: Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai wins 2025 Nobel Prize in literature!
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The Swedish Academy has awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature to Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, recognising his “visionary body of work that reveals the power of art even amid apocalyptic terror.”
The first Hungarian winner after Imre Kertész in literature
The 71-year-old novelist, known for his dense, rhythmic prose and haunting explorations of human despair and transcendence, is the second Hungarian writer to receive the world’s most prestigious literary honour, the Nobel Prize — the first being Imre Kertész in 2002.
Born in Gyula in 1954, Krasznahorkai studied law and literature at Eötvös Loránd University before devoting himself fully to writing. His literary debut came in 1977 in the influential journal Mozgó Világ, and he rose to international prominence with his 1985 novel Satantango — later adapted into a celebrated seven-hour film by director Béla Tarr, his long-time collaborator and friend. The pair went on to create Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) and The Turin Horse (2011), both acclaimed worldwide.
The second Hungarian Nobel Prize winner in literature
The Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize, praised Krasznahorkai as a master of the Central European tradition of the absurd and grotesque, drawing comparisons to Kafka and Thomas Bernhard, writes 444. His style — characterised by long, flowing sentences and philosophical depth — confronts the meaninglessness of existence in desolate settings that nevertheless reveal universal truths. American writer Susan Sontag once called him “the contemporary Hungarian master of the apocalypse.”