WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2025
War & War begins at a point of danger: on a dark train platform Korim is on the verge of being attacked and robbed by thuggish teenagers. From here, we are carried along by the insistent voice of this nervous clerk. Desperate, at times almost mad, but also keenly empathic, Korim has discovered in a small Hungarian town's archives an antique manuscript of startling beauty: it narrates the epic tale of brothers-in-arms struggling to return home from a disastrous war.
Korim is determined to do away with himself, but before he commits suicide, he feels he must escape to New York with the precious manuscript and commit it to eternity by typing it all out onto the world wide web. Following Korim with obsessive realism through the streets of New York (from his landing in a Bowery flophouse to his move far uptown with a mad interpreter), War and War relates his encounters with a fascinating range of people in a world torn between viciousness and mysterious beauty.
Following the eight chapters of War & War is a short 'prequel acting as a sequel', 'Isaiah', which brings us to a dark bar, years before in Hungary, where Korim rants against the world and threatens suicide. Written like nothing else (turning single sentences into chapters), War & War affirms W. G. Sebald's comment that Krasznahorkai's prose far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing.
Translated by George Szirtes
Rezensionen / Stimmen
Laszlo Krasznahorkai writes prose of breathtaking energy and beauty. He manages to combine our most earthly concerns with large cosmic questions. His tones and textures are filled with both risk and certainty. He has elevated the novel form and is to be ranked among the great European novelists. * Colm Toibin * As the worthy winner of this year's Man Booker International prize, Krasznahorkai throws down a challenge: raise your game or get your coat ... the intensity of his commitment to the art of fiction is indisputable ... exhilarating, even euphoric. -- Hari Kunzru * Guardian * The universality of Krasznahorkai's vision rivals that of Gogol's Dead Souls and far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing. * W.G. Sebald *
Auflage
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Produkt-Hinweis
Maße
Höhe: 198 mm
Breite: 128 mm
Dicke: 24 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-78125-623-7 (9781781256237)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Laszlo Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, Hungary, in 1954. He has written 14 novels and won multiple awards including the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2025, the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2019 for Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming, the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement and the 2024 Prix Formentor. Several of his most famous novels, including Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance, were turned into films by the director Bela Tarr. His books have been translated into forty-two languages, and his most recent, Herscht 07769, was published in 2024. He lives in the hills of Pilisszentlaszlo in Hungary.
