Hungary’s Laszlo Krasznahorkai wins Nobel literature prize

AFP | Stockholm

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The Nobel Prize in Literature was yesterday awarded to Laszlo Krasznahorkai, considered by many as Hungary’s most important living author whose works explore themes of postmodern dystopia and melancholy.

The Swedish Academy honoured him “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

“I’m very happy, I’m calm and very nervous altogether,” the author told Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio.

“It is my first day as a Nobel prize winner,” he said.

The Academy highlighted Krasznahorkai’s first novel published in 1985, “Satantango”, which brought him to prominence in Hungary and remains his best-known work.

The Academy called it “a literary sensation”.

Krasznahorkai is “a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess,” the Academy said.

“But there are more strings to his bow, and he also looks to the East in adopting a more contemplative, finely calibrated tone.”

“The result is a string of works inspired by the deep-seated impressions left by his journeys to China and Japan,” it said.

Krasznahorkai was among those mentioned as a possible winner in the run-up to the prize.

The permanent secretary of the Academy, Mats Malm, said he had managed to contact the newest laureate to inform him.

“I just reached Laszlo Krasznahorkai on the telephone on a visit in Frankfurt, where he was,” he said.

“We have started to discuss things, about arrangements in December (for the prize ceremony in Stockholm), but not come so far yet.”