Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai wins the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature

Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature.

He is recognised “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art,” said the Academy.

Krasznahorkai, now 71, is known for novels that combine bleak landscapes, existential dread, and philosophical depth.

His debut novel Satantango (1985) won the Man Booker International Prize in 2015.

“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,” said Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee.

He described Krasznahorkai’s prose as having “developed towards … flowing syntax with long, winding sentences devoid of full stops that has become his signature.”

Several of Krasznahorkai’s novels have been adapted into feature films, most notably Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance.

He is the second Hungarian writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since Imre Kertész in 2002.

The Prize has now been awarded 118 times since 1901. Recent recipients include Annie Ernaux, Bob Dylan, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Louise Glück, Peter Handke, Olga Tokarczuk, and Hang Kang.

Krasznahorkai is due to receive the medal and diploma in a ceremony in Stockholm in December.