Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai wins 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature

Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai has won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, the award-giving body announced on Thursday.

The prize, awarded by the Swedish Academy, is worth 11 million Swedish crowns (£870,000 / $1.2 million).

Established in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel, the prizes for achievements in literature, science, and peace have been awarded since 1901.

"The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2025 is awarded to the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art," said Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.

Past winners of the literature prize include French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme, who received the first award in 1901; American novelist and short story writer William Faulkner in 1949; Britain's wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1953; Turkey's Orhan Pamuk in 2006; and Norway's Jon Fosse in 2023.

Last year's prize went to South Korean author Han Kang, who became the 18th woman laureate — the first was Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf in 1909 — and the first South Korean to receive the award.

Over the years, the Swedish Academy's choices have drawn as much criticism as praise.

In 2016, the award to American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan sparked debate over whether his work qualified as literature, while Austrian writer Peter Handke's prize in 2019 also provoked controversy. Handke had attended the 2006 funeral of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, widely held responsible for the deaths of thousands of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and the displacement of nearly one million others during the 1998–99 war.

Prizegivers have also faced accusations of snobbery, anti-American bias, and neglecting literary giants such as Russia's Lev Tolstoy, France's Émile Zola, and Ireland's James Joyce.