How To Win The Nobel Prize in Literature?

How To Win The Nobel Prize in Literature?

In 2025, Krasznahorkai László won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Who is he? What he has to say about himself and his working process.

Photo by Anastasiya D on Unsplash

In an interview with the Louisiana Channel. See the interview here.

The Knights in the Mist

Krasznahorkai talks about his hometown, Gyula, and as he says, its knights in the mist. People with strange characters, people with habits that are unusual. It really melts my heart because that is how life goes in small towns. I was raised in the same small-big town as him — 20,000+ people — and I’m perfectly sure that every small town has its characters. People who can’t fit the mold. It’s fascinating to observe how well they go with the flow. People who are doing the same thing over and over, people who feel like they live in one dimension. They are always in roles, like this bus driver who was always just a bus driver. Never a man, a father, a husband, a brother, a child. No, he was the bus driver with his extraordinary character, like he came from a tale.

Wandering Years

Krasznahorkai then talks about his wandering years when he was working different jobs to get by, and to hide from going back to the army, as it was brutal on his health. He was working as a miner, a house of culture director for six different villages at once, a teacher, a night watchman on a dairy farm, and so on. Everywhere he went, he found hope and light, solidarity and community. All jobs and places shaped him, and he chose to live a low life despite coming from a middle-class family.

Which reminds me that no jobs are shitty if you can see it’s nothing but something to do to grow as a human. If you keep an open mind, you can work wherever.

Everyone has a Sentence

Krasznahorkai is working in his head first. The famous Sátántangó was written without a goal, during his years as a night watchman on a dairy farm surrounded by cows. No fancy desk, no warm coffee on a table, no view or books around. I don’t know about you, but this revelation gives me hope that all my scribbles might make sense later. You should feel good just to write; it doesn’t matter if it’s on a scrap of paper or notes on your phone. You will edit it later, or just write something better. Whatever is stuck in your head, it will find a way to be seen.

This winter, I will read his books, and I’ll be grateful to be able to read his work in its original language. What a beautiful gift from the world, I always wished to read Dostoevsky in Russian, but I don’t speak the language. Now, here I can read Krasznahorkai in Hungarian.

Oh, yeah, to answer the question in the title, I’d say be humble and true to yourself.

If you had different takeaways from the interview, please share them with me in the comment section.

Thanks for reading!