Nobel Prize 2025: Who is Laszlo Krasznahorkai, this year's Literature laureate?

The 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded on Thursday to Hungarian author and screenwriter Laszlo Krasznahorkai “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art".

He will be the sole recipient of the Royal Swedish Academy's award of 11 million Swedish kronor (roughly $1.17 million).

This great epic writer of the Central European tradition, whose works carry a range of influences from Franz Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, was born in Hungary's Gyula in 1954, near the Romanian border. The place would go on to influence the setting of Satantango (1985), his debut novel that thrust him to the fore of Hungarian literature, and on a larger level, European postmodern literature.

The author's journeys to China and Japan have also led to a contemplative view of the East in novels like ‘Eszakrol hegy, Delrol to, Nyugatrol utak, Keletrol folyo’ (2003), a novel about the search for a secret garden, set in Japan.

The novel was translated into English in 2022 as 'A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East'.

What makes Krasznahorkai special?

Often labelled postmodern, Krasznahorkai is known for his difficult and demanding novels, characterised by Absurdism, grotesque excess, and a melancholic tenor.

Famed in the literary world for works like 'The Melancholy of Resistance', 'Seiobo There Below', and 'The Last Wolf', the 71-year-old author has previously won a Man Booker International Prize in 2015 for 'The World Goes On', a collection of short stories involving wonderful characters like a waterfall-obsessed Hungarian interpreter, a child labourer, and more. He was also shortlisted for the same prize in 2018. 

Krasznahorkai's German masterpiece ‘Herscht 07769’ has also been described as a fine example of the contemporary German novel, for its terrifying, yet credible, portrayal of a small town in Thüringen, Germany, affected by social anarchy, murder, and arson.

"It is a book, written in a single breath, about violence and beauty ‘impossibly’ conjoined," the Nobel Committee wrote about his novel, in an X post.