Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai has won the Man Booker International Prize. He was described by the chair of the judges, Marina Warner, as “a visionary writer of extraordinary intensity and vocal range who captures the texture of present-day existence in scenes that are terrifying, strange, appallingly comic, and often shatteringly beautiful. The Melancholy of Resistance,Satantango and Seiobo There Below are magnificent works of deep imagination and complex passions, in which the human comedy verges painfully onto transcendence. Krasznahorkai, who writes in Hungarian, has been superbly served by his translators, George Szirtes and Ottilie Mulzet.”
The GBP60,000 prize is awarded to a living author for a body of work, either written in English or available in English translation. Previous winners include Chinua Achebe, Philip Roth, Lydia Davis and Alice Munro.
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