László Krasznahorkai

Early life and education

Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, Hungary, on 5 January 1954, the son of György Krasznahorkai, a lawyer, and Júlia Pálinkás, a social security administrator.

After completing his secondary education in 1972 at the Erkel Ferenc high school where he specialized in Latin, he studied law from 1973 to 1976 at József Attila University (JATE) (now the University of Szeged) and from 1976 to 1978 at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) (formerly the University of Budapest). After completing these law studies, he sought a degree in Hungarian language and literature from Eötvös Loránd University. As a requirement of his degree work, he submitted a formal thesis on the work and experiences of Hungarian writer and journalist Sándor Márai (1900–1989) after he fled Hungary in 1948 to escape the Communist regime that seized power after World War II (Márai lived in exile in Italy and later San Diego, California). During his years as a university student in Budapest, Krasznahorkai worked at Gondolat Könyvkiadó, a publishing company. Krasznahorkai received his degree in 1983.

Career as writer

Since completing his university studies Krasznahorkai has supported himself as an independent author. When in 1985 his first major publication Satantango achieved success, he was immediately thrust into the forefront of Hungarian literary life. The book, a dystopian novel set in his native Hungary, is regarded as his most famous. It received a Best Translated Book Award in the English language in 2013.

He travelled outside of Communist Hungary for the first time in 1987, spending a year in West Berlin as a recipient of a DAAD fellowship. Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, he has lived in a variety of locations. In 1990, for the first time, he was able to spend a significant amount of time in East Asia. He drew upon his experiences in Mongolia and China in writing The Prisoner of Urga and Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens. He has returned many times to China.

In 1993, his novel The Melancholy of Resistance received the German Bestenliste-Prize for the best literary work of the year. In 1996, he was a guest of the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. While completing the novel War and War, he travelled widely across Europe. The American poet Allen Ginsberg was of great assistance in completing the work; Krasznahorkai resided for some time in Ginsberg’s New York apartment, and he described the poet’s friendly advice as valuable in bringing the book to life.

In 1996, 2000, and 2005 he spent six months in Kyoto. His contact with the aesthetics and literary theory of the Far East resulted in significant changes in his writing style and deployed themes. He returns often to both Germany and Hungary, but he has also spent varying lengths of time in several other countries, including the United States, Spain, Greece, and Japan, chronicling them in his novel Seiobo There Below, which won the Best Translated Book Award in 2014.

Beginning in 1985, the renowned director and the author's good friend Béla Tarr made films almost exclusively based on Krasznahorkai's works, including Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies. Krasznahorkai said the 2011 film The Turin Horse would be their last collaboration.

Krasznahorkai has received international acclaim from critics. Susan Sontag described him as "the contemporary Hungarian master of apocalypse who inspires comparison with Gogol and Melville". W. G. Sebald remarked, "The universality of Krasznahorkai's vision rivals that of Gogol's Dead Souls and far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing." In 2015, he received the Man Booker International Prize, the first Hungarian author to be so awarded.

Personal life

After residing in Berlin, Germany for several years, where he was for six months S. Fischer Guest Professor at the Free University of Berlin, Krasznahorkai currently resides "as a recluse in the hills of Szentlászló" in Hungary. After divorcing his first wife, Anikó Pelyhe, whom he married in 1990, he married his second wife, Dóra Kopcsányi, a sinologist and graphic designer, in 1997. He has three children: Kata, Ágnes and Emma.

Importance and interpretation

Regarding The Melancholy of Resistance (1989):

...the book’s narrative voice and focus change without warning, shifting from character to character, occasionally in mid-sentence. Krasznahorkai flirts with surrealism, but without ever consummating the relationship. His style is dense, and the story meanders at the pace of social change, gaining speed only by force of its own gravity. Each paragraph runs on uninterrupted for dozens of pages, resisting abbreviation or quotation.

Books

Screenplays for films

Collections and critical studies

Honors and awards

Krasznahorkai has been honored with numerous literary prizes, among them the highest award of the Hungarian state, the Kossuth Prize, and the Man Booker International Prize for his English-translated oeuvre.