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Award for Krasznahorkai

May 20, 2015

Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai has been awarded the Man Booker International prize, recognizing his global standing as an author of "deep imagination and complex passion."

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Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Copyright: Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images
Image: Getty Images/S.C. Wilson

Proclaiming Laszlo Krasznahorkai a "visionary writer of extraordinary intensity and vocal range," the judging panel's chairperson Marina Warner declared the 61-year-old Hungarian writer the sixth winner of the 60,000-pound ($90,000) prize for his literary output, including "The Melancholy of Resistance," "Seiobo There Below" and "Satantango."

Running parallel to the Man Booker's annual prize for literature, the biennial Man Booker International award recognizes an international writer for their entire body of work, available in English. Former recipients include Alice Munro, Philip Roth and Chinua Achebe. The award was announced in a ceremony in London overnight, where Krasznahorkai was selected from a shortlist of 10 authors.

Comparing the author - notorious for his sprawling stream-of-conscience sentence structures - to Franz Kafka, Marina Warner described Krasznahorkai's novels as "terrifying, strange, appallingly comic, and often shatteringly beautiful."

The Hungarian is no stranger to official decoration, having been awarded the German Bestenliste Prize in 1993 for "The Melancholy of Resistance." He is also a recipient of the Kossuth prize, Hungary's highest state cultural honor.

jgt/kbm (AP, Reuters)

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