The ‘master of apocalypse’ who embraced Kafka, ditched periods

Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his dystopian work characterised by absurdity, grotesque excess and a lack of periods.

- Bloomberg

Laszlo Krasznahorkai's work is dystopian and characterised by absurdity, grotesque excess and a lack of periods.

(REUTERS)

The 71-year-old is an epic writer in the tradition of his hero Franz Kafka of whom he once said, “When I am not reading Kafka I am thinking about Kafka. When I am not thinking about Kafka I miss thinking about him.”

Krasznahorkai will receive IL million-krona ($1.2 million) “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apoealyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art,” the Swedish Academy said in a statement on Thursday.

Dubbed literature’s ‘master of the apocalypse’ by American critic Susan Sontag, Krasznahorkai was born in the small town of Gyula in southeast Hungary, near the Romanian border.