László Krasznahorkai

Crowned by Susan Sontag as contemporary literature’s “master of the apocalypse”, László Krasznahorkai is the author of an extraordinary body of work that has created a dedicated international following spanning generations and has transformed the writer from a cult icon into one of the most prominent artists in the world today. From his 1980s novels Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance, which became bleak cinematic masterpieces in the hands of his late creative collaborator Béla Tarr — the acclaimed Hungarian filmmaker who died in January 2026 — to his later works HERSCHT 07769 and Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, Krasznahorkai’s narratives are characterized by a relentless intensity mixed with playful absurdism and grotesque excess. His signature long, winding sentences flow like music, immersing readers into an unsettling, dreamlike world only to awaken them to the brutal truths of existence. His 2008 book Seiobo There Below, an episodic narrative made up of 17 stories, is focused on the relationship between the artist and art in a world of suffering and impermanence. With his latest work Zsömle is Waiting, about a retired electrician with a claim to the Hungarian throne, Krasznahorkai returns to carnival Hungary for a surreal tragicomedy that portrays the cultural, existential and political uncertainty of his home country (and the whole world) through a satirical lens. He has won numerous honors and awards during his long career, culminating in the Man Booker International Prize in 2015 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2025.