Writer of epic of melancholic world wins Nobel Prize for Literature

For most ordinary readers, the Nobel Prize in Literature may seem as remote as “a trader of ginger keeping track of ships.” Yet, each year when the prize is announced, curiosity is suddenly rekindled—who has won it, why, and what has the winner written? There is a reason for this interest. Literature, after all, mirrors our lives—our laughter and tears, our love and loss, our hopes and despair. For thoughtful minds, literature is not merely entertainment; it is a deep engagement with life itself. But in this age of social media, where fleeting distraction has replaced reflection, only a handful of people now follow world literature. Even so, when the Nobel announcement arrives, the old excitement returns, and once again, people everywhere begin to discuss, analyse, and wonder. In that sense, the Nobel Prize in Literature remains one of the most anticipated global events in the cultural world.

The Nobel Prize is, without doubt, one of the highest honours in the literary sphere. Yet history is full of great writers who never received it despite their brilliance—revolutionary modernist James Joyce, philosophical magician Jorge Luis Borges, Africa’s original voice Chinua Achebe, and master craftsman of language Vladimir Nabokov, to name but a few.

Asia, too, has produced many such luminaries—Munshi Premchand, Syed Waliullah, Haruki Murakami and Intizar Hussain—whose works crossed linguistic and national borders to reach the frontiers of world literature. Though they did not win the Nobel, they earned readers’ lasting love, the respect of time, and a permanent place in literary history.

This year, Indian author Arundhati Roy’s name was strongly in contention. Her “The God of Small Things” won the Booker Prize, and her fearless reflections on politics, society and human rights had brought her very close to the Nobel. Other prominent writers such as Amitav Ghosh were also among those speculated upon.

Putting an end to all speculation, this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature has gone to Hungarian novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai. The Swedish Academy honoured him “for reaffirming, through the power of art, humanity’s dream amid the terrors of apocalypse.”

Krasznahorkai was previously awarded the Man Booker International Prize in 2014, a recognition that further solidified his stature. Critics know him for his long, intricate and philosophical prose in which the human inner world, loneliness, political unrest and existential despair are portrayed with intensity.

His first novel, Satantango, published in 1985, brought him international fame. Spanning almost 1,800 pages, it depicts through the life of a rural collective farm an allegorical picture of illusion, hope and moral paralysis. One of his famous lines—“Everything has turned to mud, inside and out”—is not only about physical decay but also about the stagnation of the human spirit.

A hallmark of Krasznahorkai’s writing is his breathtakingly long sentences. His prose flows like a stream of thought, endlessly unfolding. In War and War, for instance, he explores the mental turmoil of a forty-four-year-old man through a single long sentence, in which the man realises with horror that he has understood nothing at all—neither the world nor himself. The awareness of this ignorance becomes an unbearable riddle, merging the mysteries of the world with those of the self. Through such passages, Krasznahorkai’s sprawling sentences seem to embody chaos of the mind, complexity of perception and the emptiness of existence.

Elsewhere he writes, “He was thinking endlessly, with sentences that had no end”—a reflection of his own style. His language can be dense or hypnotic, blending psychology, pain and the experience of meaninglessness into a strange, immersive reality.

In “The Melancholy of Resistance”, he portrays the mental breakdown of a town where the arrival of a giant whale plunges people into fear, anger and irrationality. “People cannot endure the monotony of peace, so they invent catastrophes,” he writes—a haunting expression of modern humanity’s self-destructive impulse, a theme that runs through much of his work.

At the opening of his novel “Seiobo There Below”, he writes: “At the Kamo River, a white heron waits—and the waiting itself is eternity.” This “waiting” is central to his literary universe: time stands still, yet meaning is born from existence itself. He further observes, “Art is nothing but the endless preparation for an encounter that may never come”—perhaps the most honest confession of artistic creation, where the artist never knows when, how, or to whom his devotion will reach.

Krasznahorkai’s influences include Kafka, Thomas Bernhard and Samuel Beckett. Yet he does not remain trapped in despair; he seeks a glimmer of spiritual light within darkness. In one interview he said, “My books are about the end of everything, but in that end there is still the longing for grace.”

He seems to remind us that the purpose of art is not glory but humility. His work raises a profound question: if human beings were not afraid of losing themselves, might they finally be free? In his vision, humanity is not the hero but a lost soul searching for light within darkness. As he writes, “We live in ruins, but we must still sing of the possibility of beauty”—echoing the Nobel Committee’s citation, a tribute to art’s enduring power to preserve the human spirit amid destruction.

Krasznahorkai’s influence extends beyond fiction to film and music. He has written several screenplays—such as “Damnation”, “Werckmeister Harmonies” and “The Turin Horse”—that reflect the same fear of meaninglessness, human isolation and moral collapse. The Swedish Academy described him as “a visionary author whose prose has reaffirmed the power of art amid global devastation.”

This award is not merely a personal triumph; it is a shared joy for lovers of literature everywhere. True literature knows no boundaries of nation, language or culture—it reaches into the depths of our shared humanity.

For Bengali readers, Laszlo Krasznahorkai may be a new name, but in his humane voice we recognise the joy of existence and the light that glimmers even within darkness. In his world, time stands still—but humanity does not. It continues its search for meaning, and art remains its only faithful companion.

Chiraranjan Sarkar: Columnist


Sources:
• Interview with Krasznahorkai, (2015, March 14), The Paris Review; Retrieved from https://www.theparisreview.org
• Krasznahorkai, L. (1985), Satantango (G Szirtes, Trans.), New Directions.
• Krasznahorkai, L. (1989), The Melancholy of Resistance (G Szirtes, Trans.), New Directions.
• Krasznahorkai, L. (2013), Seiobo There Below (O Mulzet, Trans.), New Directions.
• Krasznahorkai, L. (1999), War & War (G Szirtes, Trans.), New Directions.