Politics
Hungary’s Laszlo Krasznahorkai wins Nobel literature prize
STOCKHOLM: The Nobel Prize in Literature was on Thursday awarded to Laszlo Krasznahorkai, considered by many as Hungary’s most important living author whose works explore themes of postmodern dystopia and melancholy.
The Swedish Academy honoured him “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”
“I’m very happy, I’m calm and very nervous altogether,” the author told Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio.
“It is my first day as a Nobel prize winner,” he said.
The Academy highlighted Krasznahorkai’s first novel published in 1985, “Satantango”, which brought him to prominence in Hungary and remains his best-known work.
The Academy called it “a literary sensation”.
Krasznahorkai is “a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess,” the Academy said.
“But there are more strings to his bow, and he also looks to the East in adopting a more contemplative, finely calibrated tone.”
“The result is a string of works inspired by the deep-seated impressions left by his journeys to China and Japan,” it said.
Krasznahorkai was among those mentioned as a possible winner in the run-up to the prize.
The permanent secretary of the Academy, Mats Malm, said he had managed to contact the newest laureate to inform him.
“I just reached Laszlo Krasznahorkai on the telephone on a visit in Frankfurt, where he was,” he said.
“We have started to discuss things, about arrangements in December (for the prize ceremony in Stockholm), but not come so far yet.”
Krasznahorkai, now 71, grew up in a middle-class Jewish family.
He has drawn inspiration from his experiences under communism, and the extensive travels he undertook after first moving abroad in 1987 to West Berlin for a fellowship.
His novels, short stories and essays are best known in Germany — where he lived for long periods – and his native Hungary.
Critically difficult and demanding, his style was described once by Krasznahorkai himself as “reality examined to the point of madness”.
‘Literary sensation’
“It is Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s artistic gaze, which is entirely free of illusion and which sees through the fragility of the social order, combined with his unwavering belief in the power of art that has motivated the Academy to award him this prize,” Academy member Steve Sem-Sandberg said.
He is the second Hungarian to win the prize, after the late Imre Kertesz won it in 2002.
Last year, the award went to South Korean author Han Kang, the first Asian woman to win the Nobel.
The Academy has long been criticised for the overrepresentation of Western white men among its picks.
Women are vastly under-represented among its laureates – just 18 out of 122 since it was first awarded in 1901.
The Swedish Academy has undergone major reforms since a devastating #MeToo scandal in 2018, vowing a more global and gender-equal literature prize.
The Nobel Prize comes with a diploma, a gold medal and a $1.2 million prize sum.
Krasznahorkai will receive the award from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist and prize creator Alfred Nobel.
- Authorities urge residents to stay away from coastal areas.
- Tsunami waves of up to 3 metres (9.84 ft) expected.
- Biggest waves expected in Iwate, Aomori and Hokkaido prefectures.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck off the northeastern coast of Japan on Monday, as authorities urged residents to stay away from coastal areas where tsunami waves of up to 3 metres (9.84 ft) were expected.
The tremor had an epicentre in the Pacific Ocean and was 10km deep, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The biggest waves were expected in Iwate, Aomori and Hokkaido prefectures, authorities said.
Speaking to reporters, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the government had set up an emergency task force and urged citizens in the affected areas to evacuate to safety.
Broadcaster NHK showed ships sailing out of Hachinohe port in Hokkaido in anticipation of the waves, as an alert ‘Tsunami! Evacuate!’ flashed across the screen.
Bullet train services in Aomori at the northern tip of Japan’s main Honshu island were halted due to the tremors, Kyodo news agency reported.
The quake measured an ‘upper 5’ on Japan’s seismic intensity scale — strong enough to make it difficult for people to move around. In many cases, unreinforced concrete-block walls collapse.
Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, with a tremor occurring at least every five minutes. Located in the “Ring of Fire” of volcanoes and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin, Japan accounts for about 20% of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or more.
There are no nuclear power plants currently in operation in Hokkaido and Tohoku regions, but Hokkaido Electric Power and Tohoku Electric Power have a number of shutdown nuclear power plants there. Tohoku Electric said it was checking the impact of the earthquake and tsunami on its Onagawa nuclear power plant.
US forces killed three men whom the military described as illicit drug smugglers in a strike on a boat in the Caribbean, US Southern Command said on Sunday.
Southern Command posted what it said was a video of the strike on the social media platform X, showing an explosion of a small boat travelling on open water.
The boat was travelling on “known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean,” Southern Command said.
The US military has so far killed 157 alleged members or affiliates of drug organisations in 45 strikes against drug trafficking vessels in the Western Hemisphere, a senior US defence official said last month.
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as leader of the United Nations, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis.
Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rican Rebeca Grynspan, and Senegal’s Macky Sall will each face grillings by 193 member states and NGOs for three hours on Tuesday and Wednesday.
It is only the second time the UN has held a public Q&A, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency.
Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the global organisation as its secretary-general.
US President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Manhattan-based UN, Mike Waltz, has warned the next chief must align with “American values and interests” and that Washington would back the best candidate — not necessarily a Latin American woman, as some countries are demanding.
All four candidates to take over the embattled UN when Guterres departs on December 31, 2026 pledge to grow trust in the bitterly divided organisation that faces financial Armageddon because of Washington’s refusal to pay its bills.
Here is a look at the contenders:
Michelle Bachelet
A Chilean socialist brutally tortured by the regime of Augusto Pinochet, Bachelet became her country’s first woman president in 2006.
She went on to be the UN rights chief, a sensitive role in which she alienated some countries, especially China, which mauled her for reporting on alleged abuses of the Uyghur people.
Bachelet, 74, has said that she is “convinced” she has the experience “to confront a moment” marked by unprecedented crises and conflicts.
She is backed by Mexico and Brazil — but Chile withdrew its backing after far-right President Jose Antonio Kast took office.
Rafael Grossi
The 65-year-old Grossi, a career diplomat, has led the International Atomic Energy Agency since 2019, propelling him into the middle of the battle over Iran’s nuclear programme as well as the Russian occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
His handling of the two situations has drawn close scrutiny from the United States and Russia, which both have veto power on the Security Council.
Grossi has called for the UN to “return to its founding promise — to save humanity from the scourge of war.”
Rebeca Grynspan
Less well-known than her opponents, Grynspan — Costa Rica’s former vice president — leads the UN trade and development body UNCTAD, pulling off a diplomatic feat by brokering the Black Sea Grain Initiative between Moscow and Kyiv to allow grain exports following Russia’s invasion.
In her pitch to world leaders, the 70-year-old plays up her personal story as the daughter of Jewish parents.
She said they “barely survived” the Holocaust before emigrating to Costa Rica, stressing her attachment to the UN Charter, calling the document signed as World War II came to an end a “standing warning against the perils of dehumanisation, distrust and fragmentation.”
Macky Sall
Macky Sall, 64, is the only candidate who does not come from Latin America, from where the next UN boss should come, according to convention.
The former Senegalese president has stressed the link between peace and development in his pitch to lead the UN.
He said peace can never be “sustainable” if development is undermined “by poverty, inequality, exclusion and climate vulnerability.”
Proposed by Burundi, the current chair of the African Union, Sall is supported neither by the regional African bloc — 20 of its 55 members oppose him — nor by his own country.
Senegalese authorities accuse him of bloodily repressing violent political demonstrations that left dozens dead between 2021 and 2024.
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