Nobel Literature laureate László Krasznahorkai leaves Portuguese festival due to poor health

Published connected 18/10/2025 - 18:58 GMT+2 •Updated 19:02

The 2025 Nobel Prize successful Literature winner, writer László Krasznahorkai, will not participate successful nan International Literary Festival presently underway successful nan Portuguese municipality of Óbidos, northbound of Lisbon.

According to nan organisers, nan author's patient informed them that Krasznahorkai had to time off nan colony of Óbidos “due to wellness issues requiring contiguous attention” and “will not beryllium capable to be nan events and media engagements he was truthful looking guardant to.”

The writer had already skipped his quality astatine nan opening of nan Frankfurt Book Fair earlier this week, and his information successful Óbidos was highly anticipated arsenic it would person been his first nationalist quality since receiving nan Nobel Prize.

Krasznahorkai was scheduled to return portion successful a chat astir “death” astatine “Table 15” connected Sunday, nan past time of nan event, alongside writers Lionel Shriver and Rui Cardoso Martins and moderator Isabel Lucas.

László Krasznahorkai, whose surreal and anarchic novels harvester a bleak position of nan world pinch biting humour, received nan Nobel Prize successful Literature connected 9 October for a assemblage of activity that champions nan powerfulness of creation successful a clip of “apocalyptic terror,” according to nan Nobel Committee judges astatine nan Swedish Academy successful Stockholm.

The Nobel judges stated that nan 71-year-old author, whose novels sometimes dwell of a azygous agelong sentence, is “a awesome epic writer” and that his literate activity “is characterised by absurdity and grotesque excess.”

In his latest book, “Herscht 07769,” a 384-page activity published successful Hungary successful 2021, nan writer presents a satire connected governmental extremism done a character, Florian Herscht, who becomes progressive pinch a neo-Nazi group.

Krasznahorkai joins his compatriot Imre Kertész, a Hungarian writer who won nan Nobel Prize successful Literature successful 2002, and a database of laureates that includes José Saramago, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Upon learning of nan prize, which includes a monetary grant of $1 million, nan Hungarian writer said he was “calm and nervous.”

“This is nan first time of my life that I person won a Nobel Prize. I don’t cognize what nan early holds for me,” nan Hungarian writer added successful an question and reply pinch a Swedish power station.