Krasznahorkai, László
Entry updated 31 August 2018. Tagged: Author.
(1954- ) Hungarian author whose first novel to come to international attention, Sátántangó ["Satan's Tango"] (1985; trans George Szirtes as Satantango 2012), is placed in an isolated, apocalyptically claustrophobic collective farm; the narrative, disjunctively evocative of the works of Franz Kafka, conveys a sense of profound cenotaphic abandonment: for the farm is one of the places of the world that time and history have vacated. Satantango is not a work of twentieth century sf, but can readily be apprehended as a marker of the evolution of Fantastika; his later novels deepen and bring forward this sense of proleptic alertedness. Az ellenállás melankóliája ["The Melancholy of Resistance"] (1989; trans George Szirtes as The Melancholy of Resistance 1998) is set within another encirclement from which escape is impossible, in this case a circus totally vacant except for a taxidermied whale; the protagonist of Háború és háború ["War and War"] (1999; trans George Szirtes as War and War 2006) is hallucinated by a New York whose inner workings are impenetrable to research; and Seiobo járt odalent ["Seiobo There Below"] (coll of linked stories 2008; trans Ottilie Mulzet as Seiobo There Below 2013) comprises seventeen stories – some of them literally fantastic – whose numbering follows the Fibonacci sequence (see Oulipo), a mosaic portrait of the impenetrable gap between art (or apprehension) and world which invokes moments of exquisite vastation (see Horror in SF). [JC]
László Krasznahorkai
born Gyula, Békés County, Hungary: 5 January 1954
works (highly selected)
- Sátántangó ["Satan's Tango"] (Budapest, Hungary: Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1985) [hb/Pál Deim]
- Satantango (New York: New Directions, 2012) [trans by George Szirtes of the above: hb/]
- Az ellenállás melankóliája ["The Melancholy of Resistance"] (Budapest, Hungary: Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1989) [hb/]
- The Melancholy of Resistance (New York: New Directions, 1998) [trans by George Szirtes of the above: hb/]
- Háború és háború ["War and War"] (Budapest, Hungary: Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1999) [hb/]
- War and War (New York: New Directions, 2006) [trans by George Szirtes of the above: pb/]
- Seiobo járt odalent ["Seiobo There Below"] (Budapest, Hungary: Magvető Könyvkiadó, 2008) [coll of linked stories: hb/]
- Seiobo There Below (New York: New Directions, 2013) [coll of linked stories: trans by Ottilie Mulzet of the above: pb/]
links
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