Interview with the 2025 Nobel Prize laureate in literature László Krasznahorkai on 6 December 2025 during Nobel Week in Stockholm, Sweden.  

Could you describe the environment in Hungary when you were growing up? 

László Krasznahorkai: It was a small town and remain a small town also today. I was born there, and I lived there until I was 18. That was like a tale for me because I read a lot. All of the books were very important for my fantasy, because the texts actually inspired my fantasy. I could deal with my small town, called Gyula. I could see just through this fantasy world, also when I was a teenager. I loved this world very much – it was actually not a town for me, it was the world for me. 

My first experiences about the human beings and about the legendary figures in the town played a huge role in my life later. But this wonderful fairytale small town later disappeared in the past. I lost this town, because when I went back when I was adult, I lived somewhere in near Budapest, and I went back. I tried to find the original small town. I tried to find it: here was a street, the name was the same, also the trees were the same, but that was not what I wanted to find. That was a huge crisis in my life that I lost my home. 

Also today, I have a critical relationship with my birthplace, because the people there who live now in this small town, they actually never left. For example, my brother never left this small town. It is not the same. The town organised a huge so-called Nobel Week in Gyula. A lot of readings, official and civil things, big pictures on the streets. Thank you very much. It’s very kind. But the fact is, I lost my original town.

Did you always strive to be a writer? 

László Krasznahorkai: Oh, that was much later. When I was my second half of my twenties, I wandered in the country, because I couldn’t leave Hungary because of the political situation. I was not an active anti-communist propagandist or something like that. But you know, that time under the Soviet occupation in Hungary was absolutely not a good sentence. And I tried to write in my head good sentences. In my teenage time, I dealt with music, with classical music and also with beat music and jazz, free jazz. I played the piano. I never thought to be a writer. Literature, especially poetry, had a flourishing time I was a teenager. I saw the geniuses of the contemporary poets liked Gods. I could never imagine that there would come a time when I belong also belonged to this heaven. I wanted to just write one book, my first novel Satantango.  

But unfortunately, somebody, later my friend, came into the picture, the film director Béla Tarr. He wanted to make a film from Satantango, so I had to read the book again. I experienced that “this is not the book that I wanted to write. I have to make something better – not deal with this old text but rather make a new one.” But I was very innocent. After my second novel, The Melancholy of Resistance, Béla once again wanted to make a movie. I had to read it once more. I said “Jesus Maria, what is this?” 

What to do? I couldn’t find an exit from this cage, you know? I went down. When I arrived at the lowest level, a policeman asked me, what is your job? “I am a writer.” I became a writer. Always trying to correct what I couldn’t solve in the book. My whole life, I’ve been a corrector of myself. 

Which authors are important to you? 

László Krasznahorkai: Franz Kafka. Without Kafka, I would never have become a writer. I have a brother, six years older than me. I was a little child, he was a big boy, and his circle of friends read a lot of literature. I wanted to understand what they talked about: Kafka, Dostoyevsky, the Russian literature, the American and European literature. I wanted to get closer to this circle, to be among these big boys. One night, I chose a book from my brother’s bookshelf. It was – unfortunately or fortunately – The Castle by Kafka. I was maybe 12 or 11 years old. I read the whole book and I couldn’t understand it: what is the story, what is this castle? It was absolutely a secret for me. I got closer to the circle, but I could never understand this Castle. The Castle by Kafka remained until today the most beautiful secret in literature for me. That’s why I told you that without this Castle, I would never have been a writer. 

But so many others: William Faulkner… It is very strange to be here. On the 7th of December, I have to hold a lecture at the same place where William Faulkner told this wonderful, a little bit romantic, but wonderful lecture about human dignity. I’m not sure if I can understand that. 

But really, so many writers. Not just literature, the whole art plays a very big role in my life and my literature. Nowadays, I very much love the contemporary free jazz, art, architecture… almost every part of the art is very important for me. 

Do you pick a theme before you start writing? 

László Krasznahorkai: I never wish to write a book about a theme. That was absolutely instinctive. Until the change of the political system in Hungary, I wandered and I lived among very poor people because of my very huge impression of Dostoyevsky. I went down to the people who suffered much more than before. This social class always suffered, throughout history. But for these nameless people, these times were maybe the most cynical. The political system thought, “okay, that was the past, but now you are the winners.” But these people were absolutely not the winners of this change. “You are the future.” “We, the future?” That was very cynical. 

I went to these people, and I lived their lives for years. Sometimes, something happened at a train station in the night or when I had a job among miners. Some small thing happened that was suddenly very important for me. I tried to go a little bit closer, what is it? Why is it so important? I got closer and closer to this “something.” When I had to correct my earlier book, I try in my head to write one sentence. These sentences became longer and longer. If you have something very important that you want to say to somebody, for example, “In the last 20 years, I’ve loved you, but I haven’t had the courage to confess it.” or “I hate you. But in the last 20 years I haven’t had the courage to confess it.”  

You cannot say that in a beautiful way in short sentences. My musical background played a big role here. Of course, it is important that a long sentence also has its structure. I’ve tried to write about the world from the small “something.” 

How do you see your role as a writer?  

László Krasznahorkai: I’m a moderator. Not a writer. To find a way between two people, between two ways of thinking, between two worlds. To be able to find a way between two events, between two fates. My role is more practical, actually. To understand what he or she or it thinks about something. In my garden in Hungary, there is a huge oak, hundreds of years old. I sit a lot on my terrace and I see this oak huge. You cannot imagine how huge it is. I try to understand somehow what he or she or it thinks. 

Do you like to travel? 

László Krasznahorkai: The first time I could leave Hungary was in 1987. When I entered the free world, I was very curious. It was a big and very dramatic experience to understand that the world is not what I thought, when I was in Hungary, in a cage. When we lived under the Soviet occupation, it was so closed, really like a cage. We thought that was the world.  

When I left Hungary, I could see that the sky was blue. Before, I had just read about it. Under the Soviet time, we lost the colours. I saw in Austria, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, that, “oh, the grass is green. What a wonderful green.”  

Later, I changed places. Not because I want to go to somewhere, but because I want to leave the place where I am.  

Watch the interview

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