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Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

nobelprize.org

31–40 of 106 posts

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

#31
post #21
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nobel Prize in all fields has become an award for lifetime achievement, even though the wording of Nobel's will could also be interpreted as meaning that it should be awarded for work that had the greatest impact during the preceding year.

I don't know, but I suspect the interpretation is that the impact should be during the preceding year, the wording doesn't say the work has to occur in the preceding year. So arguably the work could have been decades ago, but if the impact has only recently become apparent that counts. I think that's fine. Often it's not really possible to assess the impact of a contribution until long after, it takes a lot of contex…

I don’t think we should consider too strictly the intention of someone who has been dead for 130 years.

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

#32
post #12

[flagged]

While you might be right on certain points in your comment, the generalization in the very first sentence discredits those a lot.

ok, it was an hyperbole,

perhaps the same kind of hyperbole krasznahorkai likes to use when talking about the "arabs": "I'm sure the Arabs would accept me now that they're gonna cut off my nose, then my eyes, and then they'll poke my eyes out, my tongue rip it out, everything that sticks out of me, cut it off, tortured me, and then shoot me. So that is the Jewish past is enough for me. That’s all the family history" (https://www.szombat.org/kultura-muveszetek/krasznahorkai-las...) (...that's an example among many)

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

#33
post #12

[flagged]

This is false: "There are no hungarian intellectuals over 40 who aren’t openly racist."

Yes, there is a fair amount of under-the-grass (sometimes over) anti-semitism in Hungary (and many other European countries), as well as racism towards people with darker skin, but certainly not every hungarian intellectual over 40.

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

#34
We're on fire!

2025 - László Krasznahorkai - Literature - for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.

2023 - Katalin Karikó - Physiology or Medicine - for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.

2023 - Ferenc Krausz - Physics - for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.

To be fair, there are only 2 others since 2000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hungarian_Nobel_laurea...

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

#35
post #10

I am a bit confused as to why he was chosen. Not to diminish his tremendous body of work, but rather by the definition of the rules laid down by Alfred Nobel in his will: "All of my remaining realisable assets are to be disbursed as follows: the capital, converted to safe securities by my executors, is to constitute a fund, the interest on which is to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the precedi…

Off-topic, but reading that will is a fascinating study in 19th-century international economics: In the initial outlays, I count 5 different currencies (crowns, francs, florins, dollars, marks). I don't think anyone now would bequest cash in anything other than their native currency (to be converted by the heir).

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know this one, but I still cringe that they gave an award to Annie Ernaux.

Can you explain? I liked both of Annie Ernaux's books about her parents.

Sure.

1)The writing is very bad (which is ironic because she got mad at Houellebecq for being a racist and said that he is translated a lot because he writes like shit so easy to translate). You take an average page of Ernaux (in French) and it's just not very... sophisticated at all, but then all the critics that like her say that this language "unmasks" the reality and is the perfect medium for "autofiction".

2)Her initial ascension has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of her writing(which is very bad), but rather with her "social" message. Her entire work is basically about how she is from a working class family background which is very horrible and sexist, and going to school and university is how she escaped this horrible environment(domineering dad, "rape" that's not really rape, abortions, etc.) . She is basically "anti-beauf" and that's all.

To summarize, I would say that she is like the left-wing analogue of Houellebecq, except that Houellebecq (rightfully) doesn't win the Nobel Prize for shitty writing. I'm certainly elitist a bit of a "reactionary", but for Ernaux its so flagrant that what got rewarded was the political message and not the quality of the writing.

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

#38
post #34

We're on fire! 2025 - László Krasznahorkai - Literature - for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art. 2023 - Katalin Karikó - Physiology or Medicine - for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. 2023 - Ferenc Krausz - Physics - for experimental methods that gen…

Hungary is a relatively small country, so that's quite impressive!

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

#39
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, but I suspect the interpretation is that the impact should be during the preceding year, the wording doesn't say the work has to occur in the preceding year. So arguably the work could have been decades ago, but if the impact has only recently become apparent that counts. I think that's fine. Often it's not really possible to assess the impact of a contribution until long after, it takes a lot of contex…

I don’t think we should consider too strictly the intention of someone who has been dead for 130 years.

Strangely enough though, there is a conflict around the foundation managing Hilma af Klint's art collection and they are now trying to change how the works are displayed and loaned based on stricter interpretations of her words.

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature 2025: László Krasznahorkai

#40
post #34

We're on fire! 2025 - László Krasznahorkai - Literature - for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art. 2023 - Katalin Karikó - Physiology or Medicine - for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. 2023 - Ferenc Krausz - Physics - for experimental methods that gen…

Hungary is a relatively small country, so that's quite impressive!

"The Atomic Bomb Considered As Hungarian High School Science Fair Project"

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...

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