From: The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com

Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his impressive and visionary work which, in the midst of apocalyptic horror, reaffirms the power of art."

"László Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition, which extends from Kafka to Thomas Bernhard and is characterized by absurdity and grotesque excess," said Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee.

Born in Xhula, Hungary, in 1954, Krasznahorkai first became known with his first novel The devil's tango [Satántango], in 1985 - a bleak and fascinating portrayal of a rural community in decline [People believed to be dead appear on stage and are regarded by all present as messengers of hope or the end of the world, while the diabolical elements are hidden in the fact that the newcomers manipulate the residents who hope for salvation]. The novel won the award for the best book translated into English [Best Translated Book], almost three decades later, in 2013.

Often described as postmodern, Krasznahorkai is known for his long, complex sentences, dystopian and melancholic themes, and a relentless intensity that has led critics to compare him to Gogol, Melville, and Kafka. The devil's tango was adapted into a feature film by director Béla Tarr, with whom Krasznahorkai has had a long creative collaboration.

Krasznahorkai's career has been shaped as much by travel as by language. He first left communist Hungary in 1987, spending a year in West Berlin on a scholarship, and then found inspiration in East Asia - particularly Mongolia and China - for works such as Prisoner of Urga [The Prisoner of Urga] and Destruction and sadness under the heavens [Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens]. But he has also written a number of works inspired by the profound impressions left by his travels in China and Japan, such as his 2003 novel A mountain in the North, a lake in the South, a path in the West, a river in the East [Északról hegy, Délról tó, Nyugatról utak, Keletról róló], published in English in 2022) - a mysterious narrative with powerful lyrical parts that takes place in southeast Kyoto.

While working on the novel War and war [War and War], he traveled extensively in Europe and lived for a time in Allen Ginsberg's New York apartment, describing the legendary beat poet's support as essential to the novel's completion.

His admirers are notable: Susan Sontag called him “the contemporary Hungarian master of the apocalypse,” while WG Sebald praised the universality of his vision.

Although he has a home in Hungary, Krasznahorkai has spent recent years living in self-imposed exile in Berlin and Trieste, and has made no secret of his disdain for the policies of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

In his novel Baron Wenckheim returns home [Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming], published in English in 2019, shows an unnamed “evil, sick and omnipotent” figure driving through the city in a black motorcade, which some critics have identified as a symbol for the authoritarian prime minister who has governed Hungary since 2010.

During its time in power, the party Fidesz Orbán’s government has systematically subjugated universities, theaters, independent media, and the publishing industry to its model of “illiberal democracy.” Regarding the war in neighboring Ukraine, Hungary has tried to pursue a neutral stance, condemning the war but also blaming Ukraine and its Western allies, while remaining one of the few European countries that has not provided military aid. In an interview with Yale Review In February of this year, Krasznahorkai described Orbán’s failure to condemn Putin as the result of a “psychiatric mentality.” “Hungary is a neighboring country of Ukraine, and the Orbán regime is taking an unprecedented position — almost unprecedented in Hungarian history,” he said. “I would never have imagined that the Hungarian political leadership would talk about so-called neutrality in this matter! How can a country be neutral when the Russians are occupying a neighboring country?”

In 2015, Krasznahorkai became the first Hungarian writer to win the Man Booker International Prize.

In an interview for Guardian In 2012, Krasznahorkai said that he never wanted to be a writer because he couldn't imagine himself in literary circles. "Not because I couldn't admire writers in Hungary or in world literature. I was a great admirer of the greatest personalities of world literature - that's normal - but I couldn't imagine myself in that circle." After reading Rainer Maria Rilke's sonnet at the age of 18, The archaic body of Apollo [Archaic Torso of Apollo], he was shaken by the urgent message of the last line, “You must change your life,” and decided to descend “to the lowest floor of society, to the basement.” A series of temporary jobs eventually led him to a farm, where he worked as a night watchman. One morning, after a night in the cowshed, he went to bed, “and the people there said to me, ‘Please don’t sleep, because someone is coming to castrate the pigs.’ We waited for this man—he was a complete stranger to me—there was a very heavy atmosphere about him, the news about him was very bad, but no one was quite sure why. He arrived. He was tall, had a big nose, was almost speechless, and was wearing a very long coat. The people there invited him for a drink brandy - it was mandatory there - and after that, this tall man sat down and we had to hold the piglets. It was so horrible and the piglets suffered a lot, they screamed and writhed, and I had to push them down. The man was completely emotionless, soulless, emotionless, and he cut them up and got ready for the others”! This open-eyed nightmare was the source of The devil's tango - not this scene, but its atmosphere, its essence: "Then I thought: I have to write something about the world, not about communist Hungary, not about Hungary, not about this landscape with very poor people and miserable circumstances, but about the world on a deeper level."

Asked how he would describe his work, in an interview for Guardian ai replied: "Letters; then from letters, words; then from these words, a few short sentences; then more sentences, longer ones, and essentially very long sentences, over a period of 35 years. Beauty in language. Fun in hell". While, for readers discovering his work for the first time, he added: "If there are readers who have not read my books, I would not recommend anything to them to read; on the contrary, I would advise them to go outside, sit somewhere, perhaps by a stream, doing nothing, thinking about nothing, just standing there as still as a stone. They will eventually meet someone who has read my books".

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 117 times since 1901. Krasznahorkai will officially receive the medal and diploma at a ceremony to be held in December in Stockholm. /Telegraph/

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