‘None of Krasznahorkai’s works is easy to translate’

Ottilie Mulzet on rendering Nobel laureate László Krasznahorkai’s books into English and on curating Seagull’s Hungarian list

- Chintan Girish Modi

What was your first thought when László Krasznahorkai was announced as the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature?

I was surprised... a little shocked. I knew that Krasznahorkai had already been nominated quite a few times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, so I was beginning to think that, after so many repeated nominations, he might end up on the long list of “deserved but never awarded”. When I also saw the betting figures, showing that he was heading the odds, I began to feel that probably kind of jinxed it as well. When I realised he had really won, I just felt overwhelming joy for him as well as for his publishers, New Directions in the United States and Profile Books in the United Kingdom.

What would you say to readers who find Krasznahorkai’s work too intimidating?

With many authors, reputation and reality can differ. In Krasznahorkai's case, this is even more so. I would say, just to try to sit with his work and his sentences; a lot of his prose is far less intimidating than it looks on the printed page. I sometimes fear that this reputation of “difficulty” will a priori intimidate a lot of readers who might otherwise enjoy his works.

You have translated many of his books, including Seiobo There Below, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens, Herscht 07769, A Mountain to the North, A Lake to the South, Paths to the West, A River to the East