 With
his five novels, László Krasznahorkai (b. 1954) has won
considerable acclaim not only in his native land of Hungary but also in
Germany and Switzerland, where his books have also appeared, most recently
Háború és háború (1999, "War
and war"). The novel A Thézeusz-általános
(1993, "The Universal Theseus") won an award for the best book
of the year in Germany in 1993. The writer has made a number of films
with Hungary's most renowned avant-garde director Béla Tarr. Two
of them are based on Krasznahorkai's first novels Sátántangó
(1985, "Devil's tango") and Az ellenállás
melankóliája (1989, The Melancholy of Resistance). Krasznahorkai's
fame has also spread to the English-speaking world following the enthusiastic
response to the latter novel. Krasznahorkai has a fondness for the fading
beauty of doomed areas. "Devil's tango" is about an agricultural
collective just before the breakdown of the Socialist system. In The Melancholy
of Resistance, a circus arrives in a remote little town replete with a
stuffed whale. Soon rumours begin to circulate that the circus folk have
a sinister purpose in mind. The frightend citizens cling to any manifestation
of order they can find. This is a story that dissects a transfer of power
which holds no promise of liberation or a better life for anyone. Krasznahorkai's
long sentences are like slowly but surely advancing black lava. The novel
is built up from journeys of exploration which the narrator makes inside
the heads of the various characters. These reveal how they react to changes
and perils in their surroundings, and how deep their self-assertion is.
Krasznahorkai has been compared to Kafka, Beckett, Dostoyevsky and Gogol
and his works have also been translated into French and Spanish. Krasznahorkai
has studied philosophy and law at the University of Budapest and currently
lives as a free-lance writer at Pilisszentlászló. |