Nobel literature winner: Where to start reading the Hungarian master?

Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy praised his “visionary body of work that transforms despair into transcendence.” At 70, Krasznahorkai is the first Hungarian winner since Imre Kertész in 2002 and is known for his long, hypnotic sentences exploring dark, philosophical themes.

His international reputation grew thanks in part to filmmaker Béla Tarr, who adapted two of his novels into acclaimed films.

Though Krasznahorkai’s work can seem intimidating, The National provides recommendations for readers who want to get acquainted with the author.

Where to begin:

Seiobo There Below (2013)

A collection of stories centered on art and devotion, set in places like Kyoto and Florence. It’s one of his most accessible books. The Guardian praised its “extraordinary intensity,” while The Washington Post called it “a thoroughly satisfying artistic evolution.”

The Melancholy of Resistance (1989)

A bizarre circus disrupts life in a small Hungarian town. This novel is more straightforward but just as rich in philosophy. The New Yorker’s James Wood called it “a comedy of apocalypse” with “extraordinary, stretched, self-recoiling sentences.”

Masterpieces to know:

Satantango (1985)

Krasznahorkai’s first and defining novel about a collapsing collective farm, full of betrayal and false hope. Its structure mimics a tango’s steps forward and back. The book inspired Tarr’s famous seven-hour film. Susan Sontag called Krasznahorkai “the Hungarian master of the apocalypse.”

War and War (1999)

An archivist obsessed with a mysterious manuscript embarks on a surreal journey from Hungary to New York. James Wood described it as “one of the most profoundly unsettling experiences” and said it brought him “as close as literature could possibly take me to the inhabiting of another person.”

Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming (2016)

A late-career novel about a disgraced baron returning to his hometown, sparking chaos. It’s long and complex but darkly funny. Publishers Weekly praised it as “a sprawling, nonpareil novel” full of “exhilarating energy.”

Krasznahorkai’s unique style and themes make him one of Europe’s most original contemporary writers, now recognised on the world stage with the Nobel Prize.

By Sabina Mammadli