László Krasznahorkai Wins 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2025 is awarded to the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

Krasznahorkai is celebrated as a master of the Central European literary tradition, following in the footsteps of Kafka and Thomas Bernhard with his distinct blend of absurdism and grotesque beauty.

He was born in 1954 in the small town of Gyula in southeast Hungary, near the Romanian border. His debut novel, Sátántangó (1985), became a literary sensation in Hungary and marked his international breakthrough.

His recent work, Herscht 07769, has been praised as a powerful contemporary German novel for its stark portrayal of social unrest in a small Thuringian town. Nobel has tweeted, “It is a book, written in a single breath, about violence and beauty ‘impossibly’ conjoined.”