World
The Nobel Prize winner who didn’t know he was Jewish until he was 11
Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s father kept his religion hidden because it was “forbidden to mention it”, the author recalled
October 9, 2025 14:33
Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s father kept his religion hidden because it was “forbidden to mention it”, the author recalled
October 9, 2025 14:33The Jewish winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature only found out about his roots when he was 11 years old because his father kept his religion a secret.
Laszlo Krasznahorkai, who today won the coveted prize for his many award-winning novels, opened up about his Jewish identity to a Greek publication in 2018: “My father had Jewish roots. But he only told us this secret when I was about eleven. Before that, I had no idea.
“In the socialist era, it was forbidden to mention it."
Speaking of rising antisemitism in Hungary at the time, Krasznahorkai said: "Well, I am half-Jewish, but if things carry on in Hungary as they seem likely to do, I’ll soon be entirely Jewish.”
Krasznahorkai's grandfather changed the family name from Korin, which means 'ray of light' in Hebrew to Krasznahorkai, the name of a castle in modern-day Slovakia that was once part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
The author is known for his apocalyptic novels and unique style of writing, marked by ultra-long sentences. One of his books, Satantango, had 12 chapters and each one was just a single paragraph.
On his win, Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said: “Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess."
Fellow writer Susan Sontag said he is “the contemporary Hungarian master of apocalypse” and other writers have praised his vision.
And literary critic James Wood previously commented that Krasznahorkai's books “get passed around like rare currency".
His other works include The Melancholy of Resistance, War and War and The World Goes On.
Hardly any of Krasznahorkai's novels have been translated into English, though Satantango was, albeit 30 years after publication. It subsequently won the Man Booker International prize.
Speaking to the Guardian in 2015, Krasznahorkai described his writing process: “Letters; then from letters, words; then from these words, some short sentences; then more sentences that are longer, and in the main very long sentences, for the duration of 35 years. Beauty in language. Fun in hell.”
He continued to speak about his readers: “If there are readers who haven’t read my books, I couldn’t recommend anything to read to them; instead, I’d advise them to go out, sit down somewhere, perhaps by the side of a brook, with nothing to do, nothing to think about, just remaining in silence like stones. They will eventually meet someone who has already read my books.”
Krasznahorkai will collect his medal at a ceremony in Stockholm in December.
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