The awards panel said Krasznahorkai was honoured for his compelling and visionary work that, reaffirms the power of art in the midst of apocalyptic terror.

He was born in 1954 in Gyula, in south-eastern Hungary near the Romanian border.

His first novel, Satan Tango; set in a similarly remote rural environment, created a literary sensation in Hungary when it was published in 1985 and proved to be a breakthrough for the writer. It was later made into a seven-and-a-half-hour film by director Béla Tarr.

The book was eventually published in English translations by poet George Szirtes, as were The Melancholy of Resistance (1989) and War and War (1999), also mentioned among Krasznahorkai’s more significant works.

Krasznahorkai gave a brief English language statement for the Swedish National Radio station on Thursday. He said he is very happy, calm and nervous at the same time, adding “You know, this is the first day in my life when I won a Nobel Prize”.

The novelist has said he did not plan to be a writer and originally planned to write only one novel. But he was not happy with Satan Tango, so he wrote another one to correct the errors of the first book. He said his whole life is about corrections.

MTI Reports:

The Academy awarded Krasznahorkai "for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art," Mats Malm, the secretary of the academy, said in his laudation.

"Lászlo 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. But there are more strings to his bow, and he also looks to the East in adopting a more contemplative, finely calibrated tone," the academy said in a statement.

Krasznahorkai, 71, will receive 11 million Swedish crowns (HUF 388m) along with the prize, which is traditionally handed over on Dec 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death.

President Tamas Sulyok and Prime Minister Viktor Orban have congratulated Krasznahorkai for his Nobel Prize.

"I warmly congratulate Laszlo Krasznahorkai for his Nobel Prize in Literature," Sulyok said on Facebook.

"The pride of Hungary, the first Nobel Prize winner from Gyula, Laszlo Krasznahorkai. We congratulate you," Orban said on Facebook.

Opposition Tisza Party leader Peter Magyar and Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony also congratulated Krasznahorkai.

Magyar said on Facebook that "we respectfully congratulate Laszlo Krasznahorkai on winning the Nobel Prize in Literature". "The best novels by the latest Hungarian Nobel Prize winner depict the forgotten Hungarian provinces and the world of people oppressed by those in power," he added.

Karacsony quoted Krasznahorkai: "You have to tell people the truth, and artists must create architecture, poetry, music, science, and thought in this spirit." He added on Facebook that Krasznahorkai is "a perfect and well-deserved recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Congratulations from the bottom of my heart!"

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