Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai has been awarded the 2023 nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced Thursday. The recognition celebrates Krasznahorkai’s distinctive and often unsettling novels and short stories, marked by prolonged sentences and a uniquely bleak vision of modern existence.
The Nobel in Literature, the fourth Nobel Prize announced this week, carries a significant award of 11 million Swedish kronor (approximately $1.2 million USD), along with an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma. Krasznahorkai joins a prestigious lineage of literary giants, and the award is expected too substantially elevate his global readership and influence.
Krasznahorkai is known for his challenging and immersive style, frequently employing remarkably long sentences that mirror the relentless flow of time and the complexities of human consciousness. His major works include Satantango, a sprawling novel depicting the decay of a post-communist Hungarian village, and The Melancholy of Resistance, which explores themes of societal breakdown and individual alienation.
The Nobel committee specifically cited Krasznahorkai’s ability to articulate “the elemental forces of human existence” in a manner that is both deeply unsettling and profoundly moving. His work often grapples with themes of isolation, disillusionment, and the search for meaning in a chaotic world.
This year’s nobel Prizes began with the declaration of the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday, followed by the prizes in Physics and Chemistry. The Nobel Peace Prize will be revealed Friday, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will conclude the announcements on Monday.
All Nobel laureates will receive their awards at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10th, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite, established the prizes through his will to honor those who have conferred the “greatest benefit to humankind.”