A virtuoso of doomsday, preposterousness, and outlandishness
The Nobel body has proclaimed the recipient of this year’s literature prize: Hungarian author László Krasznagorkai. The wordsmith was honored “for his impactful and far-seeing creation, which validates art’s potency amidst end-of-world dread,” as stated on the Nobel Prize official site.
Laszno Krasnogorkai came into the world in 1954 in Gyula, a Hungarian city situated near the Romanian boundary. His initial novel, Sátántangó, concerning a community of inhabitants residing on a deserted collective farm on the cusp of the communist order’s demise, achieved widespread recognition in Hungary.
The Nobel jury points out: the novelist holds to the Central European literary heritage, which stretches from Franz Kafka to Thomas Benhard. His works are marked by the absurd and excessive grandiosity, but after journeys to China and Japan, Laszno Krasnogorkai shifts toward a more pensive, skillfully nuanced manner in his narratives.
One of the writer’s most renowned books is “The Melancholy of Resistance”, issued in 1989. He received the Booker Prize in 2015 for this opus. The novel, brimming with intense unease, unfolds in a diminutive Hungarian settlement in the Carpathian Mountains. After perusing the volume, American scribe Susan Sontag dubbed Laszlo the “master of apocalypse” of contemporary writing. The Komora publishing house will release the novel in Ukrainian during November-December this year.
On the third commemoration of the comprehensive Russian incursion, László Krasnogorkai unveiled An Angel Passed Above Us, a tale situated in Ukraine. The writer juxtaposes the battle lines with the visionary pledges of technological worldwide integration. Concurrently, in a discussion with The Yale Review, the author voiced backing for Ukraine and reproved the strategies of Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán.
“How can any nation profess neutrality when Russians invade a neighboring country? Haven’t they been slaying Ukrainians for almost 3 years? What’s meant by “This is an internal Slavic affair,” as the Hungarian Prime Minister phrases it? How is it an internal matter when people are being slaughtered?” – underscored Laszlo Krasnogorkai in an interview.
As a reminder, the Nobel Literature Prize from the previous year was given to author Han Kang. She marks the inaugural figure from South Korea to garner such a distinction.
