László Krasznahorkai

László Krasznahorkai

January 5, 1954-

Winner of the Man Booker International prize for his “achievement in fiction on the world stage.”

László Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian novelist and screenwriter who is known for critically difficult and demanding novels, often labeled as postmodern, with dystopian and melancholic themes. Several of his works, notably his novels Satantango (Sátántangó) (1985) and The Melancholy of Resistance (Az ellenállás melankóliája) (1989) have been turned into feature films by Hungarian film director Béla Tarr.
(source: Wikipedia)

George Szirtes, his translator, has called his writing a “slow lava flow of narrative, a vast black river of type.”

Man Booker says:
What strikes the reader above all are the extraordinary sentences, sentences of incredible length that go to incredible lengths, their tone switching from solemn to madcap to quizzical to desolate as they go their wayward way; epic sentences that, like a lint roll, pick up all sorts of odd and unexpected things as they accumulate inexorably into paragraphs that are as monumental as they are scabrous and musical.

(see all Man Booker Prize Winners)

Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens: Reportage
by László Krasznahorkai (Author), Ottilie Mulzet (Translator)
Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens is both a travel memoir and the chronicle of a distinct intellectual shift as one of the most captivating contemporary writers and thinkers begins to engage with the cultures of Asia and the legacies of its interactions with Europe in a newly globalized society. Rendered in English by award-winning translator Ottilie Mulzet, Destruction and Sorrow beneath the Heavens is an important work, marking the emergence of Krasznahorkai as a truly global novelist.

Books

1985: Satantango (Sátántangó), novel.
Translated by George Szirtes for New Directions Publishing.
1986: Relations of Grace (Kegyelmi viszonyok), short stories.
1989: The Melancholy of Resistance (Az ellenállás melankóliája), novel.
Translated by George Szirtes for New Directions Publishing.
1992: The Prisoner of Urga (Az urgai fogoly), novel.
1993: The Universal Theseus (A Théseus-általános), three fictional lectures.
1998: Isaiah Has Come (Megjött Ézsaiás), short story.
Translated by George Szirtes for New Directions Publishing and included in War & War.
1999: War and War (Háború és háború), novel.
Translated by George Szirtes for New Directions Publishing.
2001: Evening at Six: Some Free Exhibition-Opening Speeches (Este hat; néhány szabad megnyitás), essays.
2003: Krasznahorkai: Conversations (Krasznahorkai Beszélgetések), interviews.
2003: From the North by Hill, From the South by Lake, From the West by Roads, From the East by River (Északról hegy, Délről tó, Nyugatról utak, Keletről folyó), novel.
To be translated by George Szirtes for New Directions Publishing.
2004: Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens (Rombolás és bánat az Ég alatt), novel.
To be translated by Ottilie Mulzet for Seagull Books.
2008: Seiobo There Below (Seiobo járt odalent), novel.
Translated by Ottilie Mulzet for New Directions Publishing.
2009: The Last Wolf (Az utolsó farkas), short story.
Translated by George Szirtes for Words without Borders.
2010: Animalinside (Állatvanbent), together with Max Neumann, collage of prose and pictures.
Translated by Ottilie Mulzet for New Directions Publishing.
2012: He Neither Answers Nor Questions: Twenty-five Conversations on the Same Subject (Nem kérdez, nem válaszol. Huszonöt beszélgetés ugyanarról.), interviews.
2013: The World Goes on (Megy a világ), short stories, translated by Ottilie Mulzet for New Directions Publishing.

Also

2013: Music & Literature No. 2, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Max Neumann, Bela Tarr

2013: The Bill: For Palma Vecchio, at Venice (Sylph Editions – The Art Monographs) Translated by George Szirtes

Everything you need to know about László Krasznahorkai, winner of the Man Booker International prize (The Gaurdian)

photo: Lenke Szilagyi