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The world-renowned Nobel Prize in Literature for this year has been granted to Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, as announced by the Swedish Academy.

The Jury highlighted the seventy-one-year-old's "powerful and prophetic collection that, amidst apocalyptic fear, reaffirms the power of creative expression."

A Renowned Path of Dystopian Writing

Krasznahorkai is known for his dark, somber works, which have earned several accolades, for instance the 2019 National Book Award for translated literature and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize.

A number of of his books, among them his novels Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance, have been adapted into cinematic works.

Debut Novel

Born in the Hungarian town of Gyula in 1954, Krasznahorkai first made his mark with his 1985 first book Satantango, a dark and mesmerising representation of a failing countryside settlement.

The book would go on to earn the Man Booker International Prize award in translation decades after, in 2013.

A Distinctive Literary Style

Frequently labeled as avant-garde, Krasznahorkai is famous for his extended, meandering prose (the dozen sections of his novel each consist of a one paragraph), apocalyptic and pensive subjects, and the kind of unwavering power that has led reviewers to liken him to Gogol, Melville and Kafka.

Satantango was famously made into a extended motion picture by cinematic artist Béla Tarr, with whom Krasznahorkai has had a lengthy working relationship.

"He is a remarkable epic writer in the Central European literary tradition that includes Franz Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is marked by absurdism and grotesque exaggeration," stated the committee chair, head of the Nobel panel.

He described Krasznahorkai’s style as having "evolved into … smooth structure with long, winding sentences lacking punctuation that has become his signature."

Expert Opinions

The critic Susan Sontag has described the author as "the modern Hungarian master of apocalypse," while Sebald praised the broad relevance of his outlook.

Just a small number of Krasznahorkai’s books have been rendered in English translation. The reviewer James Wood once noted that his books "circulate like rare currency."

Worldwide Travels

Krasznahorkai’s professional journey has been molded by travel as much as by his writing. He first left the communist the country in 1987, residing a period in West Berlin for a fellowship, and later found inspiration from Asia – especially Asian nations – for books such as The Prisoner of Urga, and Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens.

While writing War and War, he journeyed extensively across the continent and stayed in the legendary poet's New York apartment, stating the legendary writer's backing as essential to finishing the novel.

Writer's Own Words

Questioned how he would characterize his oeuvre in an discussion, Krasznahorkai responded: "Letters; then from letters, vocabulary; then from these words, some brief phrases; then additional phrases that are longer, and in the main extremely lengthy paragraphs, for the duration of decades. Beauty in prose. Enjoyment in despair."

On readers discovering his work for the first time, he noted: "If there are people who are new to my novels, I couldn’t recommend anything to peruse to them; rather, I’d recommend them to go out, rest somewhere, perhaps by the banks of a creek, with nothing to do, no thoughts, just being in tranquility like stones. They will in time meet someone who has encountered my works."

Literature Prize History

Ahead of the reveal, oddsmakers had pegged the frontrunners for this year's honor as an avant-garde author, an avant garde Chinese writer, and the Hungarian.

The Nobel Prize in Writing has been awarded on one hundred seventeen previous occasions since the early 20th century. Recent laureates include Ernaux, Dylan, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Glück, Peter Handke and Tokarczuk. The most recent winner was Han Kang, the South Korean novelist best known for her acclaimed novel.

Krasznahorkai will officially accept the prize medal and diploma in a function in December in the Swedish capital.

Additional details forthcoming