Curious about 2025 literature laureate László Krasznahorkai but unsure which of his books to pick up first? Here members of the Swedish Academy give their recommendations.
Satantango (1985)
Steve Sem-Sandberg: Satantango is a debut novel unlike any other. Published in 1985 it predicted the downfall of the communist regime in Hungary four years later. Set on the plains somewhere in the south-central Hungary, it tells the story of two characters – Irimiás and his sidekick Petrina – who arrive in a village inhabited by a sample of odd, destitute workers on a agricultural collective. Who they are these newcomers? A pair of rigid inspectors sent out to inspect the collective, or the Devil’s helpers bent on destruction and disaster? It remains a mystery throughout, but through their actions they drag the poor villagers into an apocalyptic dance with infernal consequences. On the surface bleak, but shot through with Krasznahorkais characteristic humour, it remains forty years after its publication a virtuosic first achievement by an author who had yet to write even more astounding works.
The melancholy of resistance (1989)
Ellen Mattson: My absolute favourite among Krasznahorkai’s novels is The melancholy of resistance from 1989. It is in some ways a “typical” Krasznahorkai, dense, black and infernal and with a setting that feels at the same time normal and recognizable and a little strange, lopsided and surreal like a place in a dream. A small town is invaded by a group of nameless strangers, disorder follows and riot threatens, and all this is somehow connected to a mystical company of travellers displaying a disfigured man and a stuffed whale. Action and counteraction follows, but nothing leads to anything, this is life: you have to act even if there is no point to your actions. When all is over and the smoke clears some have died, some have disappeared, some are put in prison and some have taken advantage of the volatile situation to rise and gain power. It is a wonderfully dark and darkly funny novel, and like all Krasznahorkai’s works it is completely timeless.
Seiobo there below (2008)
Anders Olsson: My choice is the magnificent Seiobo there below from 2008, seventeen episodes about the role of art in a world of suffering and impermanence. Krasznahorkai is not only a great epic writer in the Central European tradition of exhilirating absurdism, that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard. Here you find a new, finely tuned sense of darkness, marked by Krasznahorkais travels to China and Japan in the beginning of the 21st century. Unforgettable is its opening, Zen Buddhist scene, in which a snow-white heron stands motionless in the middle of the River Kamo in Kyoto, waiting for its victim in the whirlpools below. Invisible to the masses the bird becomes an elusive image of the situation of the artist. Another breathtaking episode deals with the very risky transportation of a late, unfinished painting by the Italian artist Perugino from Florence to his birthplace Perugia, undertaken by his mostly drunken assistants. How close we are to lose the thread, how wondrous it is to find it again!
Herscht 07769 : A Novel (2021)
Anna-Karin Palm: In a small town in eastern Germany, strange things begin to happen. Florian Herscht, a giant young man with a good heart and weak intellect, is swept up in the events and transformed. Krasznahorkai places his novel in contemporary underground movements, and depicts how fear and suspicion threaten the quiet everyday life of the small town. Mythological perspectives coexist with realistic ones in a musically flowing, lively prose. The author allows simple human warmth to appear side by side with violence and hatred, and the sublime beauty and order that Bach’s music represents rings like a distant dream throughout the novel.
Published October 2025
To cite this section
MLA style: What to read: László Krasznahorkai. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2025. Sat. 11 Oct 2025.
