Krasznahorkai, László
Entry updated 14 October 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1954- ) Hungarian author whose first novel to come to international attention, Sátántangó ["Satan's Tango"] (1985; trans George Szirtes as Satantango 2012), is placed in an isolated, apocalyptically claustrophobic collective farm; the narrative, disjunctively evocative of the works of Franz Kafka, conveys a sense of profound cenotaphic abandonment: for the farm is one of the places of the world that time and history have vacated. Satantango is not a work of twentieth century sf, but can readily be apprehended as a marker of the evolution of Fantastika; his later novels deepen and bring forward this sense of proleptic alertedness. Az ellenállás melankóliája ["The Melancholy of Resistance"] (1989; trans George Szirtes as The Melancholy of Resistance 1998) is set within another encirclement from which escape is impossible, in this case a circus totally vacant except for a taxidermied whale; the protagonist of Háború és háború ["War and War"] (1999; trans George Szirtes as War and War 2006) is hallucinated by a New York whose inner workings are impenetrable to research; and Seiobo járt odalent ["Seiobo There Below"] (coll of linked stories 2008; trans Ottilie Mulzet as Seiobo There Below 2013) comprises seventeen stories – some of them literally fantastic – whose numbering follows the Fibonacci sequence (see Oulipo), a mosaic portrait of the impenetrable gap between art (or apprehension) and world which invokes moments of exquisite vastation (see Horror in SF).
Krasznahorkai received the Nobel Prize for literature in 2025. [JC]
László Krasznahorkai
born Gyula, Békés County, Hungary: 5 January 1954
works (highly selected)
- Sátántangó ["Satan's Tango"] (Budapest, Hungary: Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1985) [hb/Pál Deim]
- Satantango (New York: New Directions, 2012) [trans by George Szirtes of the above: hb/]
- Az ellenállás melankóliája ["The Melancholy of Resistance"] (Budapest, Hungary: Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1989) [hb/]
- The Melancholy of Resistance (New York: New Directions, 1998) [trans by George Szirtes of the above: hb/]
- Háború és háború ["War and War"] (Budapest, Hungary: Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1999) [hb/]
- War and War (New York: New Directions, 2006) [trans by George Szirtes of the above: pb/]
- Seiobo járt odalent ["Seiobo There Below"] (Budapest, Hungary: Magvető Könyvkiadó, 2008) [coll of linked stories: hb/]
- Seiobo There Below (New York: New Directions, 2013) [coll of linked stories: trans by Ottilie Mulzet of the above: pb/]
links
previous versions of this entry