STOCKHOLM — Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, celebrated for his long, hypnotic sentences and darkly philosophical novels, has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Swedish Academy called his “compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

The Nobel judges praised the 71-year-old author’s “artistic gaze which is entirely free of illusion”, noting how his work exposes the fragility of social order while maintaining an “unwavering belief in art’s redemptive force.”

Krasznahorkai’s debut novel “Satantango” and his acclaimed “The Melancholy of Resistance” were both adapted into films by Hungarian director Béla Tarr, further solidifying his influence across literature and cinema.

“László Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess,” said committee member Steve Sem-Sandberg at Thursday’s announcement in Stockholm.

Often described as the “contemporary master of the Apocalypse” — a title coined by American critic Susan Sontag — Krasznahorkai has earned a reputation for constructing novels that unfold in single, marathon-like sentences exploring despair, redemption, and meaning in collapsing worlds.

He previously received the Man Booker International Prize in 2015 and the U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2019 for “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming.”

Krasznahorkai was also known for his friendship with American poet Allen Ginsberg, often staying at Ginsberg’s New York apartment during his visits to the U.S.

He is the first Hungarian Nobel literature laureate since Imre Kertész in 2002, joining a distinguished list that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

This year’s literature prize follows those in medicine, physics, and chemistry, with the Nobel Peace Prize set to be announced Friday and the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday.

Each Nobel carries a monetary award of 11 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), along with an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma. The formal ceremony will take place on Dec. 10, marking the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. —Agencies