While most of his novels are set in a single setting, War & War is a story about a man named Korim's journey across Hungary and eventual voyage to New York City and ensuing hardships. War & War is a novel of extraordinary scope for Krasznahorkai.
Playing on common themes in Hungarian literature, Krasznahorkai is a living testament to the enduring momentum of the Hungarian novelistic tradition. In most of his novels, his characters are caught between rapidly deteriorating social conditions and the unlikely promise of redemption by mystical means. Krasznahorkai's work should be of special interest to students of the Hungarian novel for their experimental style and direct lineage to other philosophical novelists in the Hungarian canon such as Krúdy and Szerb (for more on these two authors, see "Classic Hungarian Novels" tab in this guide). Having begun his writing career in the 1980s during the erosion of Hungarian communism, Krasznahorkai's work is primarily preoccupied with themes of the dissolution of meaning, dystopia, and apocalypse. For instance, some of his works are written in a single lengthy sentence. He does not shy away from experimentation, placing him firmly in the camp of a writer's writer. His works are notoriously demanding and difficult, and they are considered emblematic of postmodernist literature. The winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement, László Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, Hungary.László Krasznahorkai is Hungary's most famous living writer.
Theirs is the dance of death.” Into this world comes, it seems, a messiah… “Their world,” in the words of the renowned translator George Szirtes is “rough and ready, lost somewhere between the cosmic and tragic, in one small insignificant corner of the cosmos. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village, rank with the stench of failed schemes, betrayals, failure, infidelity, sudden hopes, and aborted dreams. Set in an isolated hamlet, the novel unfolds over the course of a few rain-soaked days. Now in paperback, Satantango, the novel that inspired Béla Tarr’s classic film, is proof that the devil has all the good times. "Satantango is a monster of a novel: compact, cleverly constructed, often exhilarating, and possessed of a distinctive, compelling vision - but a monster nonetheless.The grandeur is clearly palpable."― The Guardian Satantango by László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes / ISBN 9780811220897 / 288-page paperback from New Directions
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