What to read by Nobel Prize in Literature winner László Krasznahorkai

Krasznahorkai’s dark, gloomy novels favour atmosphere over plot

(Image credit: Colin McPherson / Alamy)

His “dystopian, melancholic novels” have earned lavish praise from the likes of Colm Tóibín, Susan Sontag and W.G. Sebald, said Emma Loffhagen in The Guardian. Now, László Krasznahorkai has scooped the biggest prize in literature. Announcing the 71-year-old Hungarian as the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy cited his “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”.

Krasznahorkai is “almost a parody of a Nobel winner”, said John Self in The Times. “His novels are dark and gloomy, favour atmosphere over plot, and are written in long sentences that make up even longer paragraphs.” But they’re certainly original. No one else could have written his novel “War and War”, about a suicidal man who travels to New York to “type out an ancient manuscript on the internet before taking his own life”. And they do offer something “for the general reader”, though you “need to take your time with him”.

Krasznahorkai’s best-known novel is his 1985 debut, “Sátántangó”, about an impoverished Hungarian village visited by a devil-figure, said Frederick Studemann in the Financial Times. Written in chapters made up of single paragraphs, it was later turned into a seven-hour-plus film. Subsequent works have included “Seiobo There Below” (2008), an episodic narrative made up of 17 stories, and last year’s “Zsömle odavan” (“Zsömle is Waiting”), about a retired electrician with a claim to the Hungarian throne.