The Nobel Committee announced Thursday that 71 year old Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in literature. He is known for postmodern and apocalyptic novels and novellas like Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance.
In a statement the committee says it is honoring Krasznahorkai "for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art."
Satantango, Krasznahorkai's first novel, came out in 1985. It's about a pair of swindlers and a nearly abandoned collective farm. The book was made into a seven hour movie in 1994. And The Melancholy of Resistance, which is one sentence that runs over 300 pages, is about a strange, ghostly circus appearing in a small town with a giant, dead stuffed whale.
The Nobel Prize is worth $1.2 million. There have been 118 Nobel Prizes in literature awarded since 1901. Past winners include Doris Lessing, Alice Munro and Derek Walcott.
Meghan Sullivan edited this story for radio and the web.
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