Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s recent receipt of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature marks a significant moment not just for Hungarian letters, but for global literature as a whole. His recognition by the Swedish Academy underscores a persistent truth: that art, particularly literature, retains a vital role in bearing witness to the complexities and crises of the modern world.
Narrative Style Compared to Kafka & Bernhard
Krasznahorkai’s prose is distinctive, almost notorious, for its simple sentences and relentless focus on existential dread. Born in Gyula, Hungary in 1954, he has consistently explored themes of despair, vulnerability, and the precariousness of civilization. Susan Sontag’s characterization of Krasznahorkai as the “Hungarian Master of the Apocalypse” is more than a catchy epithet; it highlights his unique ability to marry absurdism with a sense of impending doom, a combination rarely executed with such sophistication. His narrative style, often compared to Kafka and Thomas Bernhard, demands a great deal from the reader—attention, patience, and a willingness to be swept along by the rhythm of his thoughts. The effect is immersive, drawing readers into a continuous stream of consciousness that both challenges and rewards.
Nobel Works of László Krasznahorkai
Among Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s most influential works, Sátántangó (1985) stands out as a landmark novel for its depiction of life in a disintegrating Hungarian village. The novel’s international reputation was cemented by Bela Tarr’s monumental seven-hour film adaptation, which itself has become a touchstone of experimental cinema. The Melancholy of Resistance (1989) further explores the fragility of societal order, using the arrival of a bizarre circus and a whale to catalyze chaos and introspection within a small community. This novel, in particular, has been lauded for its profound meditation on the thin veneer of civilization that separates order from anarchy.
Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming (2016), awarded the National Book Award in 2019, and continues Krasznahorkai’s exploration of existential malaise, this time through the story of a gambling-addicted nobleman returning to his roots. The narrative is less about the events themselves and more about the psychological and philosophical reverberations they provoke. Across these works, one observes a consistent thematic concern: the collapse of external structures (be they social, political, or moral) and the enduring, if tenuous, power of art and imagination to make sense of—or at least bear witness to—this collapse.
Influence of East Asian Philosophy
It is also worth noting Krasznahorkai’s engagement with East Asian philosophy, which infuses his later writings with a broader, more contemplative perspective. This engagement enriches his work, granting it a philosophical depth that sets him apart from many of his contemporaries. The influence is evident not only in explicit references but in the meditative quality of his prose, which often lingers on questions of impermanence, emptiness, and the cyclical nature of suffering.
Hungary’s Previous Nobel Laureate
Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize also places him in the distinguished company of Imre Kertesz, Hungary’s previous laureate, who won in 2002 for his explorations of individual experience under totalitarian regimes. Kertesz’s work, like Krasznahorkai’s, interrogates the relationship between individual subjectivity and the grand, often violent, currents of history. That two Hungarian writers have now been recognized in this way speaks to the country’s complex literary legacy—a tradition marked by its historical traumas and its persistent search for meaning.
France, US, UK and Germany Bagged 40 Awards
As of the 2025 award, a total of 122 individuals have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. While a comprehensive list of every single winner by country can be very long, here are some of the countries with the highest number of Nobel Prize in Literature laureates:
France: With 16 laureates, France has the most Nobel Prize winners in literature.
United States: The U.S. is a close second, with 13 laureates.
United Kingdom: The U.K. has 11 laureates.
Germany: Germany has 10 laureates.
Sweden: Sweden rounds out the top five with 8 laureates.
Other notable countries with multiple Nobel laureates in literature include – Hungary. Laszlo Krasznahorkai's win in 2025 makes him the second Hungarian to receive the prize, following Imre Kertesz in 2002. India’s Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian and first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Norway’s Jon Fosse won the prize in 2023. Han Kang won the prize in 2024, becoming the first South Korean author to do so. Ireland has four, Chile has two laureates. Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz was the first Arab writer to win the prize in 1988.
Krasznahorkai’s recognition by the Nobel Committee is not simply a personal achievement. It is a reaffirmation of the enduring relevance of literature that confronts the darkness of human existence while searching, however tentatively, for moments of transcendence. His work stands as a testament to the power of art to illuminate, to challenge, and, perhaps most importantly, to endure in the face of uncertainty and change.