ESSAY
Views / Reviews
Comments / Compliments
Themes and Writing Style
of László Krasznahorkai
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Varga H. Mária
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László Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian writer who, earlier, won the Kossuth and Attila József Prizes. He is also the second Nobel Prize-winning writer from our small country. According to the Swedish Academy, he was awarded “for his impressive and visionary oeuvre, which strengthens the power of art even in the midst of apocalyptic terror”.
Born in my neighboring town, Gyula, now 71-year-old writer is renowned as one of the most original creators of Hungarian and world literature.
The writer’s work has long enjoyed international recognition because he previously won the International Man Booker Prize. And now, Nobel Prize 2025 is a historic moment not only for his oeuvre, but also for Hungarian literature, as once again a Hungarian author has received the greatest international recognition in literature.
Since, László Krasznahorkai has lived in twelve countries and has written more than twenty books.
László Krasznahorkai writes terribly sad stories. About bitterness and hopeless destinies.
His main themes are (nihilistic) existence, (the absurdity of the world) and chaos. As well as human alienation and social disintegration. He often examines meaninglessness of the world; contradictions of chaos and order; inability of a disintegrating society to maintain structures.
That’s why, his work demands his reader to slow down; to pay attention to language and thoughts. And, to explore the limits of human existence; possibilities of language, where chaos and order, decay and beauty are intertwined. So, he rejects fast reading.
Therefore, his writings are considered challenging, profound, and experimental in language and thought.
Furthermore, Krasznahorkai’s works are about the nature of the darkening world; the laws that are increasingly losing their force; and the maddening lack.
The worlds that appear in his novels are usually characterized by a state close to the apocalypse, in which messiahs who foresee destruction are often unable to prevail due to the banal and violent nature of the world.
Although, there is a place for mysticism and reality, but also for humor, the grotesque, and surrealism in his stories. And, tragedy always appears in a threefold division: social; existential; and cultural experience.
Resultantly, his works are not easy reading.
Hence, the essence of the narrative technique is that the events in his novels are told in turn by the locals; thus seeing the events from many perspectives. Perhaps unusually for Krasznahorkai, he deals with current public phenomena and social problems (homelessness; the migration crisis; the Roma issue). But at the same time he does not let go of the usual metaphysical perspectives. The large-scale satire is also a deep tragedy; in which, after the Far Eastern themes, the author “returns with a decisive turn to where he once started as a writer: to the social and existential reality of the Viharsarok fringe region in southern Hungary.”
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Varga H. Mária
János Horvát is a Hungarian poetess and writer. She writes under pen name Varga H. Mária (Varga – her birth name, and that continues as her family name.) She is interested in literature and reading since she was a child. Although her parents were manual workers but they instilled in her love of books. So, after their hard work, and whenever they had some free time, they always had a book in their hands.
Hence, Varga H. Mária says, “Writing is such that when inspiration strikes, you have to put it down on paper immediately. At least the gist of it.” Therefore, her desk is always full of little notes of paper, with lots of topics to write something. Now, she is approaching seventy, and as a pensioner, she has more time for her favorite occupation. So, she tells, “Whether it is morning or night, but in the quiet hours of the evening her Muse is also more willing to guide her pen.”
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