The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature was on Thursday awarded to Hungarian novelist and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”. He is 71, and is the second writer from Hungary to win the award (after Imre Kertész in 2002).
The prestigious award, bestowed by 18 judges who make up the Swedish Academy, honours a writer’s entire body of work and is worth 11 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.17 million (about Rs 10.4 crore).
The Nobel Prize website said: “László 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. But there are more strings to his bow, and he also looks to the East in adopting a more contemplative, finely calibrated tone.”
Krasznahorkai’s work comprises more than 15 works of fiction, and six screenplays. Among his notable works are the novels Satantango (1985) – his debut – and The Melancholy of Resistance (1989). He won the Man Booker International Prize in 2015.
In 2024, South Korean writer Han Kang won the prize “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
This year, Nobel winners in physics, chemistry, and medicine were announced earlier this week.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on October 10 and the Nobel Prize in Economics will be announced on October 13. The prizes will be presented to the winners at a ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
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