Hungarian master of absurdist excess László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel literature prize

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai, whose surreal and anarchic novels combine a bleak world view with mordant humor, won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for work the judges said upholds the power of art in the midst of “apocalyptic terror.”

The Nobel judges said the 71-year-old author, whose novels sometimes consist of just one long sentence, is “a great epic writer” whose work “is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess.”

He’s the first Nobel literature winner from Hungary since Imre Kertesz in 2002 and joins a list of laureates that includes Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro.

“I am calm and very nervous,” Krasznahorkai told Radio Sweden after getting news of the prize, which comes with an award of more than $1 million. “This is the first day in my life when I got a Nobel Prize. I don't know what's coming in the future.”

The American writer and critic Susan Sontag once described Krasznahorkai as the “contemporary master of the Apocalypse.” His work has echoes of other European writers who explored the absurd tragicomedy of existence, including Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett.

Zsuzsanna Varga, a Hungarian literature expert at the University of Glasgow, said Krasznahorkai’s novels probe the “utter hopelessness” of human existence, while also being “incredibly funny.”

Krasznahorkai’s near-endless sentences made his work the “Hotel California” of literature — once readers get into it, “you can never leave,” she said.

Varga suggested readers new to Krasznahorkai’s work start with “Satantango,” his 1985 debut, which centered around the few remaining residents of a dying collective farm and set the tone for what was to follow.

Krasznahorkai has since written more than 20 books, including “The Melancholy of Resistance,” a surreal, disturbing tale involving a traveling circus and a stuffed whale, and “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming,” the sprawling saga of a gambling-addicted aristocrat.

“Herscht 07769,” from 2021, is set in a German town riven with unrest. Written as a series of letters to then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it has just one period in its 400 pages.

Several works, including “Satantango,” and “The Melancholy of Resistance” were turned into films by Hungarian director Béla Tarr.

Krasznahorkai also wrote several books inspired by his travels to China and Japan, including “A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East,” published in Hungarian in 2003.

Krasznahorkai had been on the Nobel radar for some time, committee member Steve Sem-Sandberg said, calling his literary output “almost half a century of pure excellence.”

The writer was born in the southeastern Hungarian city of Gyula, near the border with Romania, and studied law at universities in Szeged and Budapest before shifting his focus to literature.

Varga, the academic, said Krasznahorkai developed a cult following among young Hungarians during the twilight of Communism in the 1980s, when “authors were pretty much like pop stars.”

János Szegő, Krasznahorkai’s editor at the Budapest-based Magvető publishing house, said that the author’s works deal with “life on the periphery,” and are interested in “the techniques of power.”

“All the populist tendencies of our time can also be found in his novels — from barbarism to the manipulation of the masses,” Szegő said.

Krasznahorkai has been a critic of autocratic Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, especially his government's lack of support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion.

In an interview with Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet earlier this year, Krasznahorkai expressed criticism both of Orbán’s political system and the nationalism present in Hungarian society.

“There is no hope left in Hungary today and it is not only because of the Orbán regime,” he told the paper. “The problem is not only political, but also social.”

Orbán nonetheless congratulated the writer in a Facebook post, saying: “The pride of Hungary, the first Nobel Prize winner from Gyula, László Krasznahorkai.”

Krasznahorkai received the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for his body of work and the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the U.S. in 2019 for “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming.”

He said none of his career was planned.

“I wanted at first to write only one book. And I didn’t want to be a writer,” he told Swedish radio, but rereading his first novel he discovered it wasn’t perfect.

“I started to write another one because I wanted to correct ‘Satantango,’” he said, and later “I tried to write a new book to correct the first two. ... My life is a permanent correction.”

The literature prize has been awarded by the Nobel committee of the Swedish Academy 117 times to a total of 121 winners. Last year's winner was South Korean author Han Kang. The 2023 winner was Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, whose work includes a seven-book epic made up of a single sentence.

The literature prize is the fourth to be announced this week, following the 2025 Nobels in medicine, physics and chemistry.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday. The final Nobel, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, will be announced Monday.

Nobel Prize award ceremonies are held on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. Nobel was a wealthy Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite who founded the prizes.

Each prize carries an award of 11 million Swedish kronor (nearly $1.2 million). Winners also receive an 18-carat gold medal and a diploma.

This version removes a comment attributed to Krasznahorkai’s X account, which could not be verified.

Mike Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Jill Lawless from London. Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary and Bálint Dömötör in London contributed.

Books by Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai are displayed in front of a stand with the inscription "Nobel Prize for Literature 2025" in Berlin's Dussmann cultural department store in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Soeren Stache/dpa via AP)

FILE - Hungary's Laszlo Krasznahorkai poses for photographers in London, Tuesday, May 19, 2015. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

Books by Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai at Börshuset in Stockholm, after he was announced as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature at the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP)

Permanent Secretary and Speaker of the Swedish Academy Mats Malm announces Laszlo Krasznahorkai as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, at the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP)

Permanent Secretary and Speaker of the Swedish Academy Mats Malm announces Laszlo Krasznahorkai as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, at the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP)

FILE - Hungary's Laszlo Krasznahorkai poses for photographers in London, Tuesday, May 19, 2015. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

FILE - Hungary's Laszlo Krasznahorkai poses for photographers in London, Tuesday, May 19, 2015. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

FILE - A close-up view of a Nobel Prize medal at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Liberian man who has been shuttled in and out of custody since immigration agents in Minnesota broke down his door with a battering ram was released again Friday, hours after a routine check-in with authorities led to his second arrest.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, backed off a bit from his threat a day earlier to invoke an 1807 law, the Insurrection Act, to send troops to suppress protests in Minnesota during an unprecedented immigration sweep in the Twin Cities.

“I don’t think there’s any reason right now to use it, but if I needed it, I’d use it," Trump told reporters outside the White House.

The dramatic initial arrest of Garrison Gibson last weekend was captured on video. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan ruled the arrest unlawful Thursday and freed him, but Gibson was detained again Friday when he appeared at an immigration office.

A few hours later, Gibson was free again, attorney Marc Prokosch said.

“In the words of my client, he said that somebody at ICE said they bleeped up and so they re-released him this afternoon and so he’s out of custody,” Prokosch said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Gibson’s arrest is one of more than 2,500 made during a weekslong immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and St. Paul, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The operation has intensified and become more confrontational since the fatal shooting of Renee Good on Jan. 7.

Gibson, 37, who fled the civil war in his West African home country as a child, had been ordered removed from the U.S., apparently because of a 2008 drug conviction that was later dismissed. He has remained in the country legally under what’s known as an order of supervision, Prokosch said, and complied with the requirement that he meet regularly with immigration authorities. =

In his Thursday order, the judge agreed that officials violated regulations by not giving Gibson enough notice that his supervision status had been revoked. Prokosch said he was told by ICE that they are “now going through their proper channels" to revoke the order.

Meanwhile, tribal leaders and Native American rights organizations are advising anyone with a tribal ID to carry it with them when out in public in case they are approached by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Native Americans across the U.S. have reported being stopped or detained by ICE, and tribal leaders are asking members to report these contacts.

Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma and chair of the United Indian Nations of Oklahoma, called the reports “deeply concerning”.

Organizers in Minneapolis have set up application booths in the city to assist people needing a tribal ID.

Democratic members of Congress held a local meeting Friday to hear from people who say they've had aggressive encounters with immigration agents. St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, who is Hmong American, said people are walking around with their passports in case they are challenged, and she has received reports of ICE agents going from door to door “asking where the Asian people live.” Thousands of Hmong people, largely from the Southeast Asian nation of Laos, have settled in the United States since the 1970s.

Minneapolis authorities released police and fire dispatch logs and transcripts of 911 calls, all related to the fatal shooting of Good. Firefighters found what appeared to be two gunshot wounds in her right chest, one in her left forearm and a possible gunshot wound on the left side of her head, records show.

“They shot her, like, cause she wouldn’t open her car door,” a caller said. “Point blank range in her car.”

Good, 37, was at the wheel of her Honda Pilot, which was partially blocking a street. Video showed an officer approached the SUV, demanded that she open the door and grabbed the handle.

Good began to pull forward and turned the vehicle's wheel to the right. Another ICE officer, Jonathan Ross, pulled his gun and fired at close range, jumping back as the SUV moved past him. DHS claims the agent shot Good in self-defense.

FBI Director Kash Patel said at least one person has been arrested for stealing property from an FBI vehicle in Minneapolis. The SUV was among government vehicles whose windows were broken Wednesday evening. Attorney General Pam Bondi said body armor and weapons were stolen.

The destruction occurred when agents were responding to a shooting during an immigration arrest. Trump subsequently said on social media that he would invoke the Insurrection Act if Minnesota officials don’t stop the “professional agitators and insurrectionists” there.

Minnesota’s attorney general responded by saying he would sue if the president acts.

Associated Press reporters Ed White and Corey Williams in Detroit; Graham Lee Brewer in Oklahoma City; Jesse Bedayn in Denver; Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu; and Ben Finley in Washington contributed.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, including one wearing a 'NOT ICE' face covering, walk near their vehicles, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Richfield, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

A person looks out of their vehicle as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents walk away, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, in Richfield, Minn. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)